The Orchard
by Inuvik
Summary: A bad day, a bad meal, something is rotten down there... set during the 4th season. Please, R&R, it really helps! Thank you
1. prologue

**Prologue**

* * *

The Jumper touched down on the ground.

In the pilot's chair, Major Lorne felt his jaw relaxing with relief. Not knowing if he could trust the vessel's computer, the descent through the small hole in the canopy of the forest below had been stressful. Almost painful. Combined with thick darkness, the continuous piercing shrieks of branches scratching the hull had driven him to the edge of a claustrophobic attack.

Sheppard's team had been trapped on this world, a moon in a low orbit around a gas giant for four days. Four long days. That thought alone made him shiver. He would not wish for his worst enemy to be stuck in such an environment for so long... with McKay.

If only the Jumper's computer hadn't decided to play tricks with them, one minute showing life signs there and the next second showing them on the other side of the moon, making them fly all over the Ancient outpost like a child trying to catch a butterfly. Maybe he could have spared Sheppard having to deal with a few 'McKay' panic attacks.

"Okay, Guys, let's go out one more time," he said to his four Marines. Up and ready, their faces did not betray how worried they were. Neither did his own. Contradicting the Jumper's sensors, the detector in his hand indicated no life signs in a fifty meter radius around them. Damn!

The rear hatch opened with a smooth hydraulic sound and the cabin's bright light gushed out, revealing a tangle of branches, creepers, variable sized trunks, some thin and others as large as Sequoia.

Lorne's fingers clutched his P90, but as he was about to step out, a shadow suddenly appeared on the Jumper's left side.

His eyes widened as he recognized the distinctive silhouette, and he jerked his weapon aside with a curse. "Damn it, Colonel! I almost shot you!" he said, feeling his heart beating to break free in his chest.

"What the hell took you so long?" John replied harshly as he rushed to the Jumper, quickly followed by the three other members of the team.

Feeling too relieved to see them all in one piece to really care about the tone, Lorne exhaled slowly, released his grasp on his weapon as he watched his Commanding Officer go past him and enter the pilot cabin without looking at anyone in the Jumper.

Lorne frowned. Covered in mud from head to toe, his right leg and shoulders stiff, his hands clenched into fists, Sheppard's body radiated more anger than tiredness.

And he was not the only one to feel that it was best to stand out of Sheppard's way. Silent, McKay sat down between two Marines at the back. A clear signal that couldn't be missed.

"Are you okay?" he asked to Teyla when she entered the Jumper.

"We're... fine, Evan. Thank you for coming to our rescue," she said, a relieved and sincere expression on her delicate face.

"I only wish it hadn't taken so long to find you," he apologized with a small nod just as Ronon entered.

He turned his head on his left to look at the last member of the team... and felt his eyes widening.

Even muddier than Sheppard, the Satedan threw his fist on the hatch control to close it, moved forward without looking at anyone and collapsed into the co-pilot's seat.

"We're uninjured. That is all that matters," Teyla sighed as she sat down with the Marines. Exhausted, she closed her eyes and leant her head on the panel separating the pilot cabin from the rear.

"Now is a good time," the Satedan growled as he removed a blotch of dried mud from his hair.

A good time for what? Lorne wondered. To leave, sure it would be perfect time to do so. Even if he were curious to know what had happened to them during those four days, he knew that now was not the time to ask and silently sat down on the seat behind Sheppard's.

"Yeah, I agree," John replied, a weary tone in his voice, "I can't wait to take a shower."

"A proper meal too!"

"Shut up, McKay!"

"Shut up, McKay!"

Startled by the sudden aggressive tone, Lorne raised his head and saw Teyla rolling her eyes to McKay, enjoining him not to dare to speak again.

Rodney's reaction must have been something of a hurt grin because the two Marines facing him bit their lips. Worried, he shook his head and sent them a warning glance. Even if nobody seemed hurt, he knew better than to find the situation funny. Whatever had happened, had obviously stressed Sheppard and Ronon beyond their threshold of tolerance. If his Marines wanted to survive the next training session with the Satedan, they'd better keep themselves from laughing out loud.

The cabin lights dimmed and the bluish light from the HUD bathed the pilot cabin.

Responding to the Colonel's demands, the Jumper took off with a slight jolt and started to ascend. This time, the sound of the vegetation on the hull did not bother Lorne as much and also did not seem to last as long as before. Soon enough, the Jumper pierced the canopy and rose in the atmosphere, free.

They had covered half the distance back to the Gate when the HUD suddenly blinked rapidly. A mere second later, the engine's sound lowered and a strong bump through the Jumper tossed them around.

Colliding with one of the Marine's shoulder_s_, McKay yelled in panic: "What the hell?"

"We've just lost inertial dampeners," John replied, trying his best to keep control of the Jumper.

But a few seconds later, the HUD shut down, plunging the occupants into complete darkness for a few seconds before five P90 lights were turned on. After assuring himself that the safety was engaged on his weapon, Lorne cast a quick glance at the others. With the exception of the Colonel who had both his hands clenched on the controls, everybody had grabbed hold of something.

"Brace for impact!" John shouted.

Five seconds later, the Jumper hit the canopy of the forest below_. _While branches broke one after the other, it plummeted its way towards the ground with the shrieking sound of nails scratching on a blackboard.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_**Five days ago**_

A knock on his door yanked him back to consciousness.

Too exhausted, John burrowed under the blanket and put his pillow over his head. But a part of his mind started to fight the warmness, while the sheets transformed into a leaden cloak.

"Hey! Sheppard!"

Startled to hear a voice so close to his ear, John automatically reached for his gun on his side table.

"Wow! Calm down!" said a high-pitched panicked voice.

Recognizing the dark silhouette standing on his right, John gasped and put his gun back down.

"McKay? What the hell are you doing here?" he barked, stretching his arm to turn on the lights.

But by the time his room lightened, bathed in shadows, Rodney was nowhere to be seen. Incredulous, he blinked and looked around. He had so expected to find himself face to face with his friend's nose that he felt a bit confused. Could have he dreamt the scene? In his tired state, he wouldn't even be surprised. Hallucinations were common when one was lacking sleep. Sighing, he lay back down on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

"Come on!" his friend's voice suddenly rang out from the hall.

Sheppard turned his head to the left, looked at the door and frowned. It was open. Cursing, he nervously ran a hand through his hair. No hallucination then. Rodney's face confirmed that a mere second later when it suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked, impatience making his voice vibrate.

His teeth tightly clenched, John sat up on the edge of his bed and buried his face in his hands. A brief glance at the clock told him that it was only three am. Two hours of sleep. Two small, miserable hours...

"Is it a way to get rid of the Wraith once and for all?" John growled, not happy with his fate. His eyes were closing all on their own. Being awoken whilst in deep sleep would kill him one day.

"I don't know. Maybe-"

"So, then in the morning, the real morning… I need to sleep!" John dryly barked. Before McKay could protest, he turned off the lights and laid back down under the blankets.

A second later, the lights came on again.

John threw the sheets over his head in protest. Useless. McKay's voice reverberated, loud and clear as the head of the Science contingent stepped into his quarters.

"Oh, that's obvious to anyone who's dared to get within a ten meters radius of you for the last month and you're not the only one who's suffering from lack of sleep by the way. I need to sleep as much as you but what I found is too important to waste my time on this luxury. Now get your ass out of bed and come on. We have to launch a MALP asap."

_What the hell did McKay need a MALP for at this hour?_ Sheppard wondered, turning on his side to look at Rodney.

The man was back in the doorway and nervously staring at his watch. John sighed. Rodney's body radiated enough energy to open a wormhole back to Earth. Without any doubt, pure coffee and powerbars flooded his veins. But whatever this was, it wasn't Sheppard's case and whatever the genius brain had imagined this time, it could wait.

"No way. Carter will kill us before breakfast," he replied a bit harshly but careful enough not to yell, as it would only unleash a storm of vitriol that his rising headache would not appreciate.

"No, she won't," Rodney replied as harshly, crossing his arm on his chest, impatient. "Unlike you, she's already up and about and preparing the MALP as we speak. But her voice was too soft to wake you up, so she ordered me to fetch you," he added with an accusatory tone to his voice.

"What?"John exclaimed, giving a perplexed look at the mobile radio on his side table. How had he not heard anything? "Gimme a minute," he growled, silently furious with himself for not being able to escape from McKay's grasp.

oOo

A little less than five minutes later, John walked out of his room into the dimly lit corridor. Without casting a glance at Rodney, who was fidgeting on the spot, he turned to his left and headed at a weary pace toward the closest transporter. His friend immediately fell in alongside him.

"Three hours ago, I found a file about a moon in low orbit above a gas giant forty times bigger than Jupiter in the database. The Ancients built a scientific outpost on it but at the beginning of the war against the Wraith, they converted it into a military base..."

"Although more weapons would be fine, I still don't understand what is so urgent? Obviously, we're not under any immediate threat. Right?" Sheppard sighed, looking at Rodney as they walked.

"Do I look as if a Hiveship had just popped up on our sensors? Stop interrupting just for the sake of stating the obvious and you'll know why it can't wait," Rodney said as the transporter's doors opened in front of them.

They stepped in and John touched the city map on its center, interrupting their conversation for a brief moment. An all too brief a moment for his headache which increased a notch when the doors opened on the Gateroom.

Imperturbable, McKay continued: "I don't know if you can imagine the magnetic field around this moon..."

"Nobody can, Rodney," John said as he stepped out. Ancient technology was efficient and normally he appreciated it. But right now, he mentally swore against it.

"Yeah, right. It's too huge. As for the radiation..."

"Lethal," he sighed, shaking his head in despair before opening his eyes wide. An outpost in such a deadly environment had to be shielded. And that meant... "A ZPM!"

"Exactly! And maybe not only one. The city had three of them to maintain its shield," Rodney chirped in happily, now that Sheppard was on the same page.

"Now you're talking," John said, feeling an expected thrill spreading through his guts. "But what makes you think they're not depleted? And again, why it couldn't wait until the daily meeting?"

"To answer your first question: I don't know. That's why we need to send a MALP," Rodney said as they entered the control room bathed by the bluish light from the gate. "We'll know soon enough if the shield is still operating or not."

Sitting behind the DHD console with a laptop on her knees, Sam raised her head when she heard them enter. "Morning, Colonel_,_ how are you feeling?" she asked with a compassionate look in her eyes.

"My brain's threatening to go AWOL on me," he replied as he collapsed in the first chair that met his path. Careful not to activate the city-wide communication system, he put his elbow on the console's edge and leant his too heavy head on his hand.

"I just launched the MALP. We should get telemetry in a few seconds," she said, her voice softened by compassion as she gently tapped his shoulder.

"Got it!" Rodney exclaimed, making them both jump.

John felt his heart racing with the unexpected discharge of adrenalin. Exhausted, he had momentarily zoned out, hypnotized by the undulating blue waves of the opened wormhole. Rubbing his eyes with his palms, he exhaled and slowly stood up to join McKay at the console receiving the data from the MALP.

"Breathable atmosphere, no life signs, radiation in acceptable ranges and temperature's nice on top of that. Do we have a go?" Rodney asked, his eyes fluttering with excitement.

"Wait a second, Rodney," Sam said, approaching the screen. Although amused by the childish expression - he was almost imploring her to say yes - she did not intend to send a team on an exploration mission without knowing _all_ the parameters. Even if it would lead to a terrible tantrum by McKay.

"Wow!" she exclaimed, "That's quite a sight!"

Through the camera feed from the MALP, the gas giant filled half the sky overhead, coloring the Outpost's glass-walled facades and the artificial lake surrounding it in soft tones of blue and green. Like thin sharp arrows, eight towers pointed toward the sky, as if trying to pierce the giant planet above them and the outpost was accessible from the Gate by an arc of concrete, wide and smooth, suspended a few meters above the glistening waters.

John growled, obviously not overwhelmed by the breathtaking sight.

"Define acceptable, Rodney?" he asked, reading Sam's mind. In this excited state, what Rodney considered safe was very subjective.

"Well, as long as we don't stay there for more than let's say... a decade give or take a few months, we should be okay," Rodney mused absently, staring the screen more than them.

"Energy levels are stable, no fluctuation coming from the shield," Sam added with a satisfied nod.

"Rodney, you still haven't answered my second question..." John reminded his friend, staring at the screen while Sam commanded the MALP to make a three hundred and sixty degree view.

"Following my calculations, the moon will soon be exposed to the gas giant's dark side. Do you wish to wait two hundred and forty-five days to explore it? Or do you like perpetual night and sub-zero temperatures?"

John sighed. Of course he was not! And not only they could hope to find ZPMs within its walls but also an incredible amount of technology, information... it was just too big a discovery to begin to imagine the extent of what lay beyond those walls. No wonder Rodney was so eager to leave!

"But if the Ancients have used it, they might have found a way to compensate for this long night, right?" he replied, searching for any excuse that would allow him to go back to his bed.

"Probably. But that implies using power." Rodney's worry hit hard as the memory of their dramatic arrival on Atlantis resurfaced.

"How long do we have?"

"Five hours."

_Oh crap..._ John thought.

"Okay, let's go but we'll take a Jumper then, just in case the shield fails," he said.

"Oh, sure. It would delay our death by a few seconds maybe... just enough time to see it coming. Great," Rodney groused.

"What do you mean Rodney?" John growled, unhappy by the turn of events and already feeling the weight of a Damocles sword above his head.

"If the shield fails, you'd be too close to the gas giant. The Jumper's shield is too weak for such magnetic forces. It won't protect you..." Sam paused, an annoyed expression twisting her mouth.

"And?" John asked, already feeling like he was not going to like the answer.

"And the position of the moon is a bit unnatural. There's a possibility that the shield covers the whole moon and somehow assists in maintaining its low orbit. If that is the case, there's no guarantee that the whole moon would not immediately fall and burn in the giant's stratosphere if the shield failed."

"But with a Jumper, maybe we could make it back in time to the gate?"

"And let radiation kill everybody on Atlantis?" Rodney said with a condescending tone.

"Great. I guess in these conditions a short walk won't hurt us," John sighed, choosing not to react to the underlying insult openly. "I'll go wake up Teyla on my way to the armory. McKay, you go wake up Chewie."

"Why me?" Rodney immediately yelled, a flash of panic making his eyes become round, "Is this some kind of childish revenge?"

"You want to go or not?" John replied as Sam turned on her heels to hide a smirk. Those two were such kids at times.

"Yes of course-"

"We leave in twenty," John concluded, not quite able to keep a sadistic smile from appearing on his lips as he watched McKay seething.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

First to step out of the Gate, John walked down from the platform and stopped a few meters from the lake, on a large strip of white sand. The luminosity was one of a late summer afternoon. Pleasantly warm and quiet. He yawned. He was too tired to feel moved by the spectacle of the outpost standing in the middle of glistening emerald waters.

With a sigh, John forced himself to take a deep breath and slightly relaxed his fingers that were clenched tight on his P90. This was a secret Ancient outpost, not the Wraith home world.

He lifted his eyes towards the sky. The Gas Giant filled less than a third of the sky now and come to think of it, the lake seemed a few tones darker than on the video feed. But then, maybe it was due to the video itself, he thought, perplexed.

"Four hours twenty-seven minutes," McKay's anxious voice shouted just behind him.

Carried away in his thoughts, John almost jumped in surprise and cast an annoyed glance over his shoulder. Slightly breathless as if he had run the trip instead of being _demolecularized_, Rodney was sending nervous looks at the sky and his watch.

Already feeling his headache increasing and his patience decreasing in inverse proportions at the prospect of Rodney's inevitable 'obnoxious' timeframe countdown, John redirected his eyes on the outpost just as Ronon and Teyla walked out of the wormhole. And a few seconds later, he heard the sucking sound of the Gate shutting down.

Discovering the landscape for the first time, Teyla joined him on the beach. "It's beautiful!" she exclaimed, heading towards the bridge that seemed to hover above the water.

"Maybe but according to my readings, we should go this way," Rodney announced with a grimace, pointing behind the Gate with his finger.

John turned his head towards him then looked at the direction he was indicating. He winced at the sight of a dark green mass standing out against the horizon, at least one kilometer from their position. _Oh crap! Not another forest... _he mentally pleaded, staring at the swamp they would have to cross to reach it.

Sharing his mood, Ronon's somber eyes were screwed up, scanning the area for potential hidden enemies. "Are you really sure, Rodney?" John asked, wondering why it had to be the forest instead of the outpost.

"No, I'm not, I just woke up this morning with a terrible urge to explore an unknown forest with flashlights while a Giant planet's magnetic field threatened to splatter my flesh into a pu- "

"Okay okay! Enough Rodney, I got it," John interrupted, mentally berating himself for daring to imply that McKay did not know how to use a Life Sign Detector. And after all, this was not a natural forest but an artificial one, he thought, and the prospect of finding a secret outpost inside the secret outpost was slowly taking shape.

"Let's go. The sooner we find what we came for the better," he said, keeping himself from yawning as he walked back towards the Gate.

"And what exactly are we searching for?" Teyla asked, falling in behind him.

"Hopefully, a new source of power," Rodney replied without raising his eyes from the hand held device.

"The outpost might contain weapons, we should go there first," Ronon grumbled.

"No no no no no," Rodney quickly replied, rolling his eyes, "Going into the outpost would probably set off sensors that would use energy. We don't want that. Beside, the scanner says that there is a strong energy source in _this_ direction and as our miserable life signs would probably not count in the forest it would be safer to check it first."

John frowned, "Even if I really don't like the way you said our lives wouldn't count, I agree with Rodney, for once. And as the Ancients have converted the scientific outpost into a military one, there might be more than meets the eye."

"Food, for instance. In fact, it wasn't a forest ten thousand years ago. It was the outpost's orchard," Rodney added.

A second later, the sound of a powerbar paper being torn and crumpled could be heard.

"What? I'm starving! It's breakfast time in Atlantis you know," Rodney exclaimed in defense, clutching his snack, glaring at Ronon's covetous look.

John sighed. Missing breakfast was another thing he would have wished not to be aware of, he thought as he entered in the swamp.

The further they progressed, the more unstable and muddy the ground became. Trying to find the driest path without making too big a detour, they slowly made their way between the high reeds, listening to Rodney's explanation on the terraforming the Ancients had engineered to transform a lifeless rock into a life sustainable paradise.

"The paradise side escapes me..." Ronon growled, dragging his left leg out of a mud hole and wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.

At the gate, the temperature had been as nice as the MALP had promised, but it was not the case anymore. It was stifling.

"Well, ten thousand years without a proper maintenance system would certainly cause a few glitches. Probably just a parameter or two somewhere to adjust. I'll see what I can do when we've found the source of the energy," Rodney placated, still enthusiastically trudging along.

"Absolutely out of question, Rodney!" John barked, his eyes widening in dread. "Do I have to remind you that last time you played with an Ancient system you blew up a solar system," he barked, squashing the insect that was buzzing near his ear.

"Oh that was completely different!" Rodney burst out, "I'm not talking about turning on a weapon here. Just turn off the heating-"

"Right. And knowing our luck, you'll hit the wrong sequence and turn off the shield instead," John replied just as a reed bounced back and hit his face. Shoving it aside, he picked up the pace. Behind him, Rodney moaned at the blatant lack of trust.

Focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping their balance, the team silently fought its way toward the forest, listening to Rodney call out course corrections each time they shifted a bit from their trajectory.

"Clearance in ten meters," Rodney finally announced one and a half hours later, a deep relief in his voice. John speed up and parted the last few reeds with the barrel of his P90.

"Oh crap... Rodney?" he yelled, at the sight of the Gate standing less than ten meters from him.

Rodney trudged through the reeds, nearly colliding with him, looked up and exclaimed, "What? Oh no..."

"How is this possible?" Teyla asked, aghast. Behind her, Ronon joined them on dry ground and growled.

"Don't look at me like that! We walked in a straight line... almost. The scanner must be faulty or affected by the shield or by the Giant's magnetic field. Maybe I just need to reconfigure it to-" McKay stammered, bashing the Ancient device with one hand.

"Rodney?" Teyla gently interrupted as she saw John turning on his heels to take a deep breath. "Nobody is saying that you don't know how to use the LSD. Let's take a break," she proposed before sitting down on the concrete.

John sighed and mentally thanked Teyla for intervening. In his exhausted state, he knew he would have lost his temper with McKay. He looked at the sky. The light had dimmed further and now the lake harbored a dark green color. Time was flying.

"I'm not going through that again. I'll go and contact Atlantis for a Jumper," he said, his voice weary. Leaving a track of muddy footprints behind him, he then headed toward the DHD.

A few seconds later, the wormhole gushed out and lit their surroundings in blue. Leaning against the console, he took out his radio and transmitted his request. On the other end, Sam asked how things were going. Sighing he made a short report when Rodney's high pitched voice attracted his attention. He frowned. Why was Teyla standing between Ronon and McKay, he wondered.

"Sorry, say again?" he said to Carter, a bit distracted. Why on earth was Rodney glaring like that at Ronon?

"Is the shield still stable John?" Sam repeated.

"We haven't picked up anything wrong," he replied, raising his eyes briefly towards the sky. Now a thin crescent, the Gas Giant was partially hidden behind a veil. Clouds perhaps, John wondered silently. But then, the water had to come from somewhere.

"Take a rest, John. Major Lorne's team will be with you shortly. Atlantis out."

The wormhole disappeared.

John sighed at the order, not daring to obey it. If he sat down right now, no doubt he would snore a microsecond later.

"Enough!" Teyla shouted, stretching her hands to keep Rodney and Ronon apart.

John shook his head in despair. What the hell had Rodney eaten?

The sky overhead lit up like broad day light and a loud crack reverberated a second later.

John looked up and towards the outpost. A dark and ominous cloud engulfed it.

"Oh crap... Rodney?" Sheppard yelled, rushing to join his team.

McKay was jabbing at the LSD, eyes worried, "I didn't touch anything! I was just recalibrating- oh no that's not good. A strong electromagnetic disturbance is heading our way."

"Lorne's on his way with a Jumper, can we wait here for five minutes?" John asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the sound of another thunder bolt.

"If you want to know what it's like to be in a microwave, you can but I'm going to find refuge in the forest," McKay huffed and turned towards the forest.

His heart beating fast with the sudden and strong impulse of adrenalin, John swore and ran towards the swamp. "Let's go back in guys!"


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

As they ran toward the edge of the swamp, Sheppard cast a look above his shoulder and felt a surge of fear tightening his gut. The outpost was no longer visible, concealed by the downpour while the lake, agitated as if a hurricane had just hit, gave the disturbing impression that it boiled.

"Move!" he cried, just as a violent gust of wind lifted up a wall of sand on the beach.

His heart beating wildly, Sheppard joined the others in the swamp, hoping that the high weeds there would offer some protection against the tremendous forces that had suddenly struck the moon.

They kept on running, as fast as they could, ignoring the stinging pain of the weeds lashing their faces and arms. Each time one of them sank into a mud hole and lost his balance, the follower extracted him from his predicament and with a tap on the shoulder, ordered him to go on without looking back.

Suddenly, a roar reverberated just above them. Sheppard cast a look above his head. _Thank God!_ he sighed at the sight of the smooth underside of a jumper less than two meters above him. But his relief was short lived. Without warning, the Jumper suddenly gained altitude. The blast from the thrusters threw them all to the ground.

"Lorne!" Sheppard yelled, raising his head in time to see the Jumper taking a sharp turn on the left and flying away at full speed.

"We're... here... dammit!" McKay cried out, out of breath. His wide eyes expressed a mix of indignation and fear.

John was helping Teyla to her feet when a lightning bolt struck not far away. They all turned their heads toward the site of impact, expecting to see a column of smoke rising into the air. But what they saw chilled their blood. An opalescent curtain of rain was heading toward them, fast. And a few seconds later, it fell down on them with the strength of the blade of an executioner, transforming the swamp into a dangerous pool of mud.

Sheppard grabbed McKay by the collar and pushed him forward. "Keep running McKay!" he told him, opening their way to lead them in as much a straight line toward the forest.

Without stopping or turning to look back, they ran for ten long minutes. But their progress became increasingly difficult as the dirty waters rose above their ankles, and soon, above their knees. Their path, more and more treacherous as the visibility shortened to nil, was stubbornly dark despite the use of their P90s' flashlights.

After twenty long minutes, Sheppard was feeling on the edge of a complete freak-out when suddenly, the rain and the water on the ground vanished. Caught by his effort to move on difficult ground, he almost fell down but managed to keep his balance - until something heavy bumped into his back and sent him flying head first.

"What the hell are you doing? Could you give a warning for God's sake!" McKay barked as Sheppard made him roll away from his back. McKay's P90 flashlight beam cut a semi-circle above his head and revealed an entanglement of branches and creepers. Lying on the ground, Sheppard's light chased the darkness that concealed an irregular underbrush invaded by ferns and other shrubs, roots and rocks formations.

Standing on his knees in the middle of a puddle created by his soaked clothes, John rubbed his face with the back of his hands and spit out the dirt that had found its way in his mouth. "Is everybody okay?" he asked, when Teyla and Ronon appeared.

"Ouch! I'm sure I have a cracked rib, I can't-"

"McKay! I cushioned your fall," he said, straightening his back and right shoulder, before directing the beam of his flashlight all around him. It was completely dark now. The air was colder, drier too and that felt good.

"I think we're safe here. At least, for now," Sheppard added.

"Thank God..." McKay muttered, removing his backpack before rolling on his back.

"Now you'll run with us at least one morning a week. That's a definite order Rodney."

This latter lifted his head from the moss covered ground in panic.

"What? You wanna kill me or what? How am I supposed to-"

"Relax," Sheppard cut. "And notice that you still have enough oxygen in your lungs to talk. So it's just a psychological gap to jump. You'll survive."

"Uh?" McKay moaned, biting his lips so as not to utter another word. It would only compromise him further.

"At least, we've reached the forest this time," Teyla said with relief.

McKay lifted his head again and stared around him with excitement. "The forest?" he repeated, before standing up and taking the LSD out from his tactical vest pocket. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ronon touching the silver liquid with the tips of his fingers. "I've never seen rain behaving like that before," the Satedan said, frowning.

"Neither have I," Teyla added.

Sheppard lifted his eyes toward them and winced.

"It looks like the event horizon of the Gate but... in grey."

"Yeah, I admit it's strange but it doesn't emit any kind of energy whatsoever while I have a perfectly good reading in this direction," McKay said, his finger pointing slightly on their right, his gaze still focused on the screen.

"I don't like this. We have no idea of how bad it is in the swamp now, even less if the Gate is accessible," Sheppard said.

Exchanging a tense gaze with Ronon and Teyla, he took out his radio.

"Lorne? This is Sheppard, come in."

But only static answered him.

"Useless! Too much radiation in the atmosphere," Rodney said, careful not to say it with a condescending tone.

Despite the statement, Sheppard changed the frequency and tried again. Without success. After several more attempts, he let out an angry growl and put back his radio in his pocket.

"Look, the source of energy is just four kilometers away. It's a one hour walk distance at most, no big deal," McKay said a bit harshly, hopping up and down with impatience.

Sheppard raised his eyebrows, surprised.

"No big deal, uh?" he repeated, hiding a smirk.

"Oh! Did I say that out loud?"

"No big deal, Rodney, just lead the way," he replied, patting his friend on the shoulder.

oOo

Two and a half hours later, Rodney stuck his fist up into the air for the fourth time in less than fifteen minutes.

"Now what?" Sheppard asked, tired.

"The energy source is on our left? Two kilometers away..." Rodney exclaimed.

Sheppard sighed. "I have had enough of this," he growled before sitting down on the ground between the moss covered roots of a tree as large as a sequoia. "Let's take a break," he added as he leant the back of his head against the trunk.

Not waiting to be told twice, Rodney sat on a rock next to him and quickly retrieved a food ration in his backpack.

"Are you feeling okay John?" Teyla asked, worried to see him pinching the bridge of his nose and wince in pain.

Sheppard was about to reply when something fell down on his right shoulder. Flinching, he automatically waved whatever had fallen with a quick move of his hand. "I'm fine," he sighed, noticing with relief that it was only a few leaves. However, feeling a bit nervous, he directed the beam of his P90 flashlight toward the canopy. Following his gaze, Teyla imitated his move.

A branch was moving about four meters above them.

"As there is no wind, I guess we have some company here," Sheppard said, slowly standing up and removing the security on his weapon.

"What? What's going on?" Rodney cried out when he heard Ronon's weapon loading itself, a ration of Salisbury beef already opened on his knees.

"Quiet," Sheppard whispered, clenching his hand into a fist.

More leaves fell toward the ground. Suddenly, the branch moved with force as if something had jumped on it, or from it. Ronon fired.

As a whirlwind of twigs and shredded leaves fell down, the sound of something scrapping fast along the trunk sounded. Ronon aimed the base of the tree and was about to fire again when two small yellow dots appeared.

"Wait!" Rodney cried, his eyes wide opened, he stared at the fury little head with pointed ears that had just appeared. "It's a cat!" he said, excited. "Just a bit bigger than its Earthling cousins!"

The beast emitted a faint growl and rubbed its side against the rough bark. Although it seemed more curious than about to throw itself at their throats, Ronon did not lower his weapon.

Rodney approached slowly toward it with a piece of powerbar in his palm.

"McKay! Don't do that!" Sheppard cried out, looking at the cat-like beast opening its mouth, revealing four very sharp canine teeth.

"C'mon, Sheppard, it's just a hungry little stomach here," Rodney replied in rolling his eyes.

"The question is: is it looking at your meal or considering you as a meal?"

"It's a cat, Sheppard. Meow. A cat!" Rodney said before stepping closer, half bent. "Hey little one, come and show uncle John that you're not a critter!"

Teyla and Ronon exchanged a confused look.

"What exactly is a _critter_?" Teyla asked.

John shook his head and sighed. "You don't wanna know, believe me."

"It's still not a good idea to nourish it," Ronon muttered, drawing back his weapon.

Rodney turned his eyes toward him. "Why? Is it past midnight already?" he exclaimed with a panicked voice, checking nervously his watch.

Sheppard chuckled.

"If it transforms into a nasty monster, I'll shoot you myself McKay," he said, sitting down again. Completely drained, he closed his eyes to take a little rest. Just a little, he thought. But he barely heard McKay replying:

"As if it were something you hadn't done already."

Shrugging his shoulders, Rodney took the animal on his knees and stroked its head, just between its tiny pointed ears. The cat immediately cuddled up against him.

Still uncertain how to interpret their dialogue, Ronon and Teyla looked at each other when they heard a slight snore escaping from Sheppard's half opened lips. Guessing that this was again a movie reference, they finally relaxed and sat down next to their team mates.

oOo

A roar echoed, loud and sinister in the darkness.

Sheppard automatically raised his fist and illuminated the bush just in front of him.

"Have you seen something?" McKay suddenly whispered in his ear. As if a mosquito had bitten him, Sheppard waved his friend away.

"Shut up McKay," he growled just as another, ominous roar sounded.

"Oh we're so dead... that's my fault, I shouldn't have-"

"We will be if you don't stop moaning," Sheppard started to say but his voice died in his throat when he felt warm breath on his neck. Something fell down on his shoulder with a splashing sound. He touched it from the end of his fingers and took a closer look at it. It was a thick, whitish sticky substance, looking disturbingly close to slime.

A feral fear immediately crushed his guts and made his heart rate jump. Feeling his knees shaking, he tightened his grasp on his P90 and suddenly threw himself forward into a spiral fall so he would face _it _and have a chance to fire. Too late! His mind screamed with dread as he saw shining sharp claws digging into the air toward his abdomen.

"WOW! Sheppard you're okay?"

Short breathed, John opened wide eyes.

Next to him, Teyla stirred out of sleep. "What's going on? John?" she asked, perplexed to see John aiming at Ronon, fingers clenched on his P90 trigger.

"Easy my friend, easy," the Satedan said, slowly pushing the P90's barrel toward the ground. "That must have been quite a nightmare. Wanna talk about it?"

Feeling his heart beating wild in his chest, John clenched his jaw at the proposal. "Er... not really," he winced, thinking that if McKay heard that he had almost shot Ronon because he thought he was an alien, he would never hear the end of it.

Still shaking slightly from the vivid nightmare, he leant his head back against the trunk and tried to close his eyes. But it took him quite a bit of effort to keep his eyelids closed.

_Damn it!_ he swore, as he opened them, feeling even more exhausted than before the little nap. He had reached the physiological state were only a sleeping pill would allow him to get the needed rest.

"Where's Rodney?" Teyla asked, worry filtering into her voice.

John turned his head to his left, toward the moss covered rock McKay had been sitting upon and frowned. Rodney's backpack was on the ground, half opened, but his friend was nowhere to be seen.

"He was still there a minute ago," Ronon growled. "In fact, he's the one who told me to wake you up. Your hand was moving a bit too closely to your weapon for his comfort and he was afraid that you would shoot all of us in a delirium-driven exhaustion."

"What? I'd never- " -_do that..._ Sheppard replied before remembering the time when he had shot Rodney under the influence of the Wraith mind control device. "His food supply's still there, he shouldn't be too far away," he added, not knowing exactly if this was a reassuring or a worrying fact.

"Rodney?" Teyla cried, lightening the darkness with her P90 flashlight.

But when her call got no answer, Sheppard turned on his radio.

"McKay, come in?"

But as with Lorne a few hours sooner, only static answered him.

Annoyed, he took his LSD out of his tac vest's left pocket. A single dot appeared, less than two hundred meters on their right, moving away from their little camp.

"Well, that must be him," he muttered, knowing that Rodney could have just discovered something on his LSD and chosen to investigate it. But he also knew that when Rodney had his mind focused on something, he could as well be walking into a time dilation field. At least he had his P90 with him.

"I'd better go fetch him before he loses himself," Sheppard said, standing up. "Stay here in case Lorne's heading toward our position. I won't be long."

Ronon and Teyla nodded gravely, both thinking that it was indeed not the moment to move nor to get separated. What the hell McKay had been thinking?

Sheppard had not covered fifty meters when the tracker flickered on and off several times. _Crap, what's going on_?, he swore when the screen completely shutdown. Trying not to think too much about his most recent nightmare, he stopped and inspected the surrounding shadows with the beam of his flashlight, checking for yellow eyes glowing in the bushes, claws scrapping more trunks. But it was quiet. Now without having a clear heading, he considered the walk back to their camp with annoyance.

The LSD came back on. Sheppard frowned when he discovered that McKay's signal was just thirty meters in front of him. _What could have prompted him to move so fast?_ he wondered.

"McKay?" he shouted, tightening his grip on his weapon. Cautiously, he stepped forward when several bursts echoed . Behind him. Now on full alert, John removed the safety on his P90 and rushed back toward Ronon and Teyla, ready to engage a potential enemy.

He had almost arrived at his destination when a discharge from Ronon's weapon missed his head by a hair's breadth and forced him to throw himself down to take cover. But he was not quick enough. A second shot took him right into the left shoulder and sent him flying into a bush invaded by prickly creepers.


	5. Chapter 4

**AN:** _Hi, my apologies for this long delay between chapters. I hope you'll enjoy this new one._

_Many many thanks to all readers who take the time to leave me a review. It's greatly appreciated :)_**  
**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

"Hey kitty, puss puss! Would you come back ya little thing? Uncle Rodney has more candies for ya!"

Crouched in an awkward position in the middle of thick and thorny bushes, Rodney winced as he extended his arm, a piece of chocolate bar in his hand. On the ground next to him, his P90 flash light was lighting the hole where the little beast had disappeared into a few minutes earlier.

A moment later, two glowing golden eyes appeared.

"Hey, com'on, we've been away far too long already and Uncle John's rather grumpy these days," he added, cheered up in his attempt.

A thorn scratched his hand, making him wince with pain as he could feel small drops of blood pearling on his skin. _Blood?_ He shuddered, suddenly hit by a dreadful thought.

"Please tell me you're not a critter..." Rodney begged just as the cat jumped on his hand, swallowing in one go the piece of chocolate bar. The cat meowed in satisfaction and gave the tip of his fingers a few rough licks.

With a sigh of relief, Rodney grabbed the cat by its scruff and pulled it out of the hole. "Nice girl. I knew you couldn't resist those, nobody can, and I'll tell you a secret; they're my favorites, too. If you behave, that means no running away in the dark forest again, I'll give you some more," he said, standing up with difficulty.

Satisfied, he wrapped the little beast into his arms. Appreciating the warm contact, the cat rubbed its head against Rodney's chin, much to the latter's pleasure.

"I do hope you don't have Pegasus's version of fleas, there's enough sucking bugs in this galaxy already," he said, kissing it on its head, just between the tiny pointed ears.

Frightened by the sudden and sinister idea of wraith fleas, Rodney looked around him, chasing the shadows away with his flashlight.

"Oh my... did I really need to think of them..." he said out loud, finding some comfort in the sound of his own voice.

Not feeling so brave anymore, he took out his LSD and checked his position.

In the right lower corner of the screen, three small dots appeared, unmoving. Rodney sighed in relief. With a little luck, his escapade had not been noticed. Talking out loud to his small companion in order to cheer himself up, he made his way back toward the team, progressing slowly between the thick, thorny bushes that invaded the underbrush.

They were less than a dozen meters from their camp when the cat suddenly tried to climb on his shoulder, all of its claws out.

"Wow wow calm down! What's happe-"

"Rodney! Where have you been? We've been searching for you for almost an hour now!" Teyla said, sighing out of relief as she turned her head backward. "I've got him!" she cried.

"For God's sake do you want to kill me or what?" Rodney barked, feeling his heart rate jumping to an uncomfortable rhythm.

Focused on trying to prevent the cat from scratching his neck, he had not heard her coming toward him. Not that Teyla's feet could be heard anyway. Even if the most dried branches littered the ground, he trusted her not to make any sound if she did not want to make any. Not like Chewie, who was as discreet right now as a herd of elephants in a shop of crystal glasses, he shuddered, hearing heavy steps running toward their position.

"Put that thing down!"

"Wowwowow! Don't shoot!" Rodney cried at the sudden appearance of Ronon's weapon just under his nose. "Wh-wh-what thing?" he added, unconsciously holding the cat tighter.

"That thing!" Ronon barked again, showing the little feline in Rodney's arms.

The cat uttered a frightened meow, buried his head under Rodney's armpit and tried to make it for his back.

Feeling brave in his position of defender, Rodney tightened his grasp on the shaking animal and sent Ronon a dark look. "Why would I do that?"

"So I can shoot it right now!"

At the threat, Rodney saw red. "Well, you'll have to shoot me first... over my dead body!" he exclaimed before turning his attention to the shaking animal. "Don't be afraid, Uncle Rodney won't let him hurt you."

"Do not tempt me, McKay!"

For the second time in a short period, Teyla stepped forward and placed herself between Ronon and McKay.

"Calm down, both of you. Now!"

"Tell that to Rambo! He's the one threatening an innocent being with a death sentence for no reason."

Teyla turned her head toward him. "They're not so innocent, Rodney. Some attacked us and took all our food supplies."

"What? Who they?" Rodney inquired, feeling suddenly worried as he now noticed that both Ronon and Teyla were disheveled and that their clothes were torn at several places. "You can't be serious, and where's Sheppard by the way?"

Despite Ronon's weapon still aiming at him, Rodney bravely passed by him, quickly though, and hurried to cover the little distance toward their camp.

Once there, he swayed the ground with his flashlight and shuddered.

The place where they had stopped earlier to take a break looked as if a tornado had just hit. The moss covered ground was strewn with broken branches, some mere twigs, but larger ones as well, and burnt leaves, indicating that Ronon had used his weapon more than once. At his feet, a backpack had been literally ripped open, its content scattered.

"Are you sure these were cats?" Rodney asked, dumbfounded, discovering another backpack torn to shreds on his right.

"If you call the creature you hold in your arms _cat,_" Teyla replied, picking up a spare T-Shirt on the moss, "then yes. They were cats."

"But how many did it take to cause such damage? I mean you're super-trained warriors..." Rodney asked, already imagining an army of cats swarming out of the darkness like rats out of a flooding sewer.

"It's a bit difficult to know for certain because of the darkness. Maybe four..."

"I'm sure I hit two," Ronon said, searching the bushes behind them with a flashlight. "At least we'll have dinner tonight."

Rodney was about to revolt himself against the idea when the cat in his arms meowed and suddenly jumped on the ground.

Anxious to not lose his little furry companion again, Rodney directed his flashlight toward it and jumped when the white halo discovered a boot.

"Oh my!" he cried, feeling his heart suddenly beating faster under a boost of adrenalin. "What happened to him?" he asked, the light revealing John lying on his back with a survival blanket covering him and a bag under his head. "Did one of these super-ninja-cats knocked him out cold?"

Ronon growled and looked away.

"During the mayhem, Ronon accidently shot him," Teyla explained, looking embarrassed.

"Oh! Collateral damage then? At least that's not a civilian this time," Rodney replied a bit too quickly. "But he'll be fine anyway, right? It wasn't set on kill? You just offered him the military version of a sleeping pill. Very extreme but efficient, " Rodney added as he knelt near John's side and shook his shoulder. "Hey! Wake up, Sheppard! No time to snore!"

But no matter what he did, John did not move.

Feeling Teyla's hand on his shoulder, Rodney raised worried eyes toward her. "How long ago did you say he took that shot?"

Teyla cast a quick glance at her watch and sighed. "Around an hour ago."

The answer only worried him further. "How come he hasn't woken up yet? Carson always said that he was the quickest to recover from the paralysis effect. He should have woken up already... Sheppard? Time to wake your lazy ass up!"

"Damn cats!" Ronon growled, joining them at John's side. "I couldn't find the ones I hit so we're out of food from now on," he added, putting John's P90 delicately on the ground so the flashlight beam would lighten the silver survival blanket. Teyla did the same and soon, the blanket radiated enough light to create a weak halo a meter, maybe a meter and a half, around John.

Teyla knelt on John's other side, stretched her hand to take his pulse, and sighed in relief when she found it steady. "He's going to be fine, Rodney. John was exhausted before leaving Atlantis, maybe his body needs more time to eliminate the stun effect this time."

"Right... Maybe he already woke up then, but just for a fentosecond before falling asleep," he replied to reassure himself just as the cat jumped on his knees and cuddled against him.

The warm contact of the fur ball was all it took to finish comforting him. "Hmm... I'm hungry... and cold," he said, swaying the ground with his flashlight with a desperate look. But Ronon was right. There was no sign of MREs or powerbars anywhere he looked.

Reluctantly, he took out the last chocolate bar in his tacvest pocket and unwrapped it with shaking hands. After second thoughts, he gave a small piece to the cat who was looking at him with wide eyes and tongue's hanging out, and swallowed the rest.

Catching his miserable look, Teyla sent him a comforting glance. "You said this place was an orchard when the Ancients used the outpost and I think I recognized a tree or two on our way here," she said, standing up and lighting the underbrush. "I'm going to try to find us something to eat."

"I'm going to lit up a fire," Ronon said, standing up at his turn.

Deprived of two flashlights, the halo of light drastically weakened and a hint of fear crossed Rodney's face as he watched Teyla and Ronon walking away. Nervous, he scratched the cat's head who had fallen asleep in his lap, hoping that John's sixth sense would wake him up if something bad happened.

oOo

A moan of pain escaped John's lips as he stirred back to consciousness. A searing pain, as if someone was splitting his skull with an ax, took his breath away. His eyes tightly closed as he tried to control the acute pain, not daring to move a toe as he was certain that it would make his brain explode. After a moment that seemed to last hours to him, he tried to fight the numbness and the feeling of disorientation that accompanied it, thinking that this kind of wake up had become too frequent since he had set foot in the Pegasus galaxy.

Careful, he moved his hand in search for his blanket. Painless sleep, that was all he needed right now; to dive back into a deep, absolutely senseless sleep or in a deprivation tank, yeah, that sounded like the best idea.

A shudder seized him. Why was his blanket so light? And what the hell was going on with the environmental controls? he wondered, perplexed to feel too hot on one side of his body and freezing on the other side.

Feeling too uncomfortable to sleep anymore, John stretched his arm to reach for the light switch.

"Ouch!" he cried, his eyes springing open at the sharp burn on his fingers tip. Through the haze of searing pain, he barely felt someone grasping his hand, nor he could hear the warning above the pounding of his heart.

"Wow, Sheppard! Don't move!"

Breathing fast and shaking under the sudden discharge of adrenalin, John took a moment to put himself under control. "Wha th'hell?" he moaned, slowly opening his eyes.

Ronon's blurry face appeared in the half-darkness, and John winced. Why was Ronon in his quarters? he wondered, although taking some relief in the friendly face. A strangled sound escaped his dry throat. Had he just tried to say something? Why was he feeling so bad? What had happened to him? Where was he? John closed his eyes tight to control a more intense stab of pain. Assaulted by too many questions, his brain felt like it was ready to bleed out of his ears and nose.

"Take it easy, John."

"Teyla?" he whispered, feeling her hand gently pushing him on his side and stroking his hair, his back. The caress appeased him and he slowly fell back asleep.

A soft, tickling sensation on his chin woke him up a few hours later. John scratched his face and frowned, feeling furs on his hand. Perplexed, he slowly opened his eyes and blinked a few times, until the sleeping cat, snuggled against him, came into focus.

"Hey, John, how do you feel now?" Teyla's soft voice asked, not far away on his right.

Cautious, he raised himself up onto his elbow and glanced at his surroundings. His team mates were all sitting around a fire, staring at him with worried eyes.

"Fine, why?" he replied.

"Rambo shot you."

Rodney's loud voice sent small daggers through John's brain and he couldn't hide a wince of pain when his headache came back with a vengeance.

"How do you feel, John?" Teyla repeated, her eyes conveying a warning that she did not buy his previous answer.

"Not fine _fine_, but fine enough..." he said, sitting up with difficulty. "Hmm, what's that smell?" he added, changing the subject as he was not certain if the lack of day light could hide his pallor. On second thought, he sure felt like hell.

"Welcome back to our miserable life," Rodney snapped just as Teyla handed one of the two canteens they had managed to retrieve.

"Unfortunately, it's the only fruit that grows here at this period. And it's a good source of vitamins. We used it in healing broth for generations," Teyla replied, a bit on the edge.

"It tastes like a healing broth," Ronon growled, swallowing a spoonful of the dark brown liquid with a wince of disgust.

Uncertain, John accepted the canteen and nodded his thanks. "What happened to our MRE's?" he asked, frowning at the sight of two backpacks in a sorry state at Rodney's feet.

Sheppard almost choked when Ronon and Teyla explained to him what had happened after he had left to find Rodney, a day and a half ago.

Casting a frightened look at his watch to confirm the dreadful passing of the time, Sheppard took out his radio from his pocket. His survival instinct was telling him with angry red flashing lights that they had to get the hell out of here. First, the sensors losing their North, then the sudden storm cutting them off from the Gate, Lorne's rescue missing them and now enraged cats stealing their food? This was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, and he did not intend to stay any longer to see how bad they would burn themselves.

"We already tried," Rodney said, demoralized. "It's useless. And we're losing one degree every hour. It looks like an environmental control. We just have to pray that the Ancients have not programmed a Canadian winter or we're doomed. Do you already experience the burning bite of cold on y-"

"The Daedalus was five days away from Atlantis when we left, so that makes about six from here now and Lorne is certainly still searching for us. With water rationing, we'll be able to hold until their arrival," John cut, not decided to let Rodney's brain wandering in the dark realms of catastrophic scenarios his brain would not miss to imagine. "Let's see the good side of all this. We won't run out of wood to light up our camp fire."

"I hate camping."

John sighed. "No you don't, Rodney. Let's see this as an opportunity to spend some good time amongst friends," he replied, trying his best not to lose his patience in front of Rodney's bad temper. And when his friend sent him a dark look, he added with a smirk: "Make that an order."

oOo

"I'm freezing," Rodney said, rubbing his arms with his hands. "I'm freezing, I'm starving, and I'm thirsty! Can you check again if Lorne-"

Sitting on the ground with his hands buried under his armpits, John blew out a sigh of deep annoyance. "I checked two minutes ago, McKay! Gimme a break would ya?" he uttered, casting a desperate look at his watch nonetheless and closed his eyes in frustration.

Three days! That made three days already and he was not sure anymore if his tactic of not moving from their position was the best one.

Since his laptop had run out of battery, Rodney was more and more difficult to manage. Wood duty, which was more difficult now that their P90s flashlights were dead, was not the kind of activity that could keep him occupied in a satisfactory way and he personally was too tired to play prime not prime. And as if things were not bad enough, a galactic diplomatic incident had barely been avoided two hours ago when Ronon had tried to catch the cat, a sharp stick in hand. Although the idea of playing _Alf_ after days of the bitter broth of fruit, roots, and leaves had also crossed his mind, the animal was the only thing that was able to calm the hyper-anxious scientist. And that was more important than being able to eat, at least for now.

Tired of the lack of physical activity, John stretched his numbed muscles and stood up to go and pick up some wood. Around the fire, the temperature had stabilized at fifty degrees, which was uncomfortable but not too bad considering that there was no wind.

John had not covered ten feet when a sudden creaking sound broke the quiet of the night air, as if the canopy was crumbling in on them. Startled, he snapped his head up to look above him, heading back toward his team mates who had all jumped to their feet.

A faint light filtered through the branches about thirty yards on his right.

"Oh thank God! It's Lorne! Com'on guys," he exclaimed.

Feeling the deepest relief he had ever felt in his whole life, he ran toward the Jumper, the others following behind him.

oOo

Less than a minute later, Rodney sat down on a rear bench between two Marines, exhausted by the ordeal he had gone through.

"Now is a good time," Ronon growled.

"Yeah, I agree," John replied, a weary tone in his voice, "I can't wait to take a shower."

On his knees, the backpack moved and Rodney quickly tightened its grip on it so it wouldn't fall.

"A proper meal, too!" he cried, loud enough to cover the sound of a meow.

In front of him, Teyla suddenly opened her eyes wide and shot him a dark glance.

Discovered, Rodney sent her a miserable glance, silently imploring her to not reveal his secret. At his great relief, it worked. Not daring to cause any useless turmoil and eager to leave the place, Teyla sighed and closed her eyes as the Jumper rose into the air.

She was falling asleep when a sudden jolt brutally tossed her forward and back without warning, sending her head crashing against the middle panel.

"What the hell?" Rodney yelled in panic.

"We've just lost inertial dampeners," John replied a second before the lights flickered and died. As the marines turned on their P90's flashlights, Teyla briefly crossed Rodney's terrorized eyes as he held onto his torn backpack as if it were a safety buoy.

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AN: Please feel free to leave a review. It might make me write faster ;)


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

After a freefall of a few silent, and terrifying seconds, the Jumper's belly suddenly broke the canopy of frail branches.

"Brace for impact!" John shouted above the sudden screeching, scraping of trees on the hull.

Both hands still on the controls, he tried once more to make them respond when a violent jolt made him grip the console in front of him. Heart knocking hard in his chest, he threw his right hand toward the DHD console to stabilize himself, although he was aware that it was only a matter of time before the Jumper would hit a trunk large enough not to yield under their weight and velocity, and then... From previous experience, he knew that no matter how hard the vessel's nose would hit, the very strong alloy would not bend; the hull won't even get a scratch.

They would be the ones to absorb all the impact.

As the Jumper plummeted roughly toward the ground, John cursed once more the lack of seat belts and airbags in the Ancient spaceship. Back on Earth, they would never have gotten a five-star rating in any crash test.

Without warning, a stronger jolt snatched his fingers from both consoles, and sent him crashing against the wall on his left side. A cry of pain escaped his lips, but he managed to regain his balance and stay in his seat as he felt the Jumper starting to topple. _Here we go__..._ he thought, mentally preparing himself for the ordeal. But just as the Jumper bumped into another tree, the cabin lights suddenly lit up.

As all the controls came back on line with a humming sound, the Gate platform and the Ancient outpost coalesced in myriad of green, blue, and purple tones.

Electrifying chills rising from deep within his guts, John grasped the controlsand managed to move up the Jumper's nose just as it was about to hit the swamp.

The soft brushing of the weeds on the hull was almost exhilarating. Breathless and dizzy by the rush of adrenalin, John hastily gained altitude and headed straight toward the Gate.

"Everyone okay?" he asked, trying to ignore his splitting headache and sore shoulder.

Next to him, Ronon nodded, not quite able to release his grasp on the console in front of him.

"Define 'okay'!" Rodney's high-pitched voice came from behind.

John slowly exhaled to ease his breathing. If Rodney was talking - not yelling or moaning that he was bleeding to death - then, yes, they were fine.

A few 'yes, sirs' and Teyla's sweet voice confirmed to him a second later that all the people he was responsible for were fine.

With a wince of pain, John straightened in the pilot seat and clenched his jaw at a sudden shooting pain in his skull.

"You okay?" Ronon asked, sending him a worried look.

"Still breathing at least," he grunted, extending his right hand to push Atlantis's Gate address symbols on the DHD console.

Even if the magnetic storm that had hit the outpost and forced them to take cover in the forest a few days earlier seemed to have ended, his instinct was still flashing red alarms blaring to leave. As they did not understand what had caused it in the first place, he would not risk being cut-off from the Gate without any warning. The Ancient outpost would remain a mystery.

"We'll come back in six months, Rodney," he said, a bit surprised not to hear his friend protesting.

He was about to cast a look above his shoulder when sparks came out of the DHD console. "Ouch! What the hell was that?" he exclaimed, hastily removing his hand. "Rodney?" he cried, not liking that at all. "Move your ass over here and fix the DHD console!" he said, asking the system to run a diagnostic while he safely landed the Jumper onto the platform.

As Rodney crouched in front of the console and opened its access panel, John extricated himself from the pilot seat. "I'm gonna dial using the Gate's DHD," he said, moving to the rear.

As he passed Teyla, he cast her a worried glance. A nice shiner kept her from opening her left eye, and she was leaning her head against the midsection panel. She must have knocked against someone's elbow or knee at some point during their near-crash.

"Are you sure you're fine?" he asked while he nodded to Lorne to open the hatch.

"Yeah, just a bit ti-"

"Ouch! What th'hell... Everybody out! NOW!" Rodney cried suddenly as a shower of sparks lightened the front cabin as if a cargo of blue fireworks had just ignited.

Eyes widening with fear, John grabbed Teyla by her arm, and quickly lifted her to her feet just as Rodney bumped into them.

"Go, go, go!" the scientist said, in the grips of a panic that was dangerously contagious in the confined space.

Feeling his heart beating wildly in his chest, John stepped away, nodding to Ronon to take care of Teyla while Lorne and his Marines rushed through the opening hatch.

Sharp crystal splinters, tiny but potential lethal arrows nevertheless , flew from the smoking, sparkling DHD console. John grabbed a backpack sitting on a bench and moved out the Jumper. Legs shaking under the sudden discharge of adrenalin, he ran with the others, trying to put as much as distance as possible between the Jumper and them.

As they reached the beach of the artificial lake surrounding the Ancient outpost, the wave caused by the Jumper's explosion threw them into the icy waters.

While he dived toward the bottom of the reservoir, John saw the shadows of his teammates, cut on a yellow and orange background. Like him, all were swimming down toward the cold darkness – with the exception of an easily recognizable one struggling to move upward.

Kicking the waters, John launched himself to catch Rodney. Although the surface was already getting darker – a sign that the fire ball had cleared the zone – the radiating heat was palpable, and there was no telling whether the surface was downright boiling or not. The further from the beach they surfaced, the better.

As John grabbed Rodney's ankle, he received a kick flat in the nose.

_Damn!_ he mentally cursed, berating himself not anticipating that the scared scientist's vivid imagination was going to create a sea monster ready to gulp him down.

Jaw clenched, John grasped his uncooperative friend again, more firmly this time. As he dragged him further, he felt with some relief the waters becoming colder. He cautiously began to swim toward the surface.

"What the hell were you thinking? You were going to drown me!" Rodney barked after taking his first breath in a couple of minutes. He was promptly seized by a fit of coughing.

Irritated, John didn't reply, preferring to take a deep breath to ease his burning lungs and to quash a sudden desire to indeed drown his friend.

"I'm okay, thank you," he muttered, catching sight of Ronon a few feet away helping Teyla climb up onto the bridge that linked the platform to the outpost.

Still slightly out of breath, John swam toward the concrete arch suspended two feet above the water and hauled himself on it. He regretted his move right away as a freezing chill swept over him. The lake was definitely warmer than the fifty-degrees air, having been warmed by the intense heat of the explosion.

Rodney's fingers clenched on the edge and slid.

John knelt and extended a shaking hand to help Rodney up. He was reassured when he caught Teyla running toward him in his peripheral vision while Ronon and Lorne helped the Marines up to join them on the bridge.

"Are you both okay?" Teyla asked, her voice shaking, holding her arms tight across her chest while her soaked clothes and dripping long hair left a pool of water at her feet.

"Yeah," John replied, turning his eyes to see what kind of damage the explosion had caused. It only took a moment to determine how screwed they were.

"Oh my..." Rodney rasped voice muttered.

On the Gate platform, the Jumper's charred shell was smoldering; some scattered debris still burned while the DHD console was giving off blue sparks, indicating that it was completely useless.

Behind them, the swamp looked like a sea of flame lighting the horizon – a sea of flame that seemed to pour directly into space.

Eyes wide with disbelief, John stared at the stars.

The orchard had disappeared.


	7. Chapter 6

_AN: I must apologize for such a long delay between updates. I'm truly sorry. However, as I am without news from by betareader for quite some time – I do hope nothing bad happened, real life can be so harsh sometimes – I chose to publish my last two chapters as I wrote them. I hope you'll enjoy reading them despite my crappy grammar (I'm not a native speaker; it's the reason why I usually work with a beta.). I also wish to thank you all for your kind reviews. It means a lot for me :)  
_

* * *

John stared at the sea of flames consuming the swamp behind the Gate platform, when he heard a big splash behind him.

Startled, he wrenched his eyes from the mesmerizing spectacle, worried. A brief glance at the silhouettes on the bridge told him that Lorne was the one who had dived back into the lake. He was swimming toward a dark, floating silhouette about two hundred feet away.

John dived back into the dark waters without hesitation to help his second in command, hoping that it was not too late. But as he got closer, the warmth of the lake did nothing to keep a cold shudder from running down his spine. In the dim orange light provided by the fire, the hardened soldier in him knew deep in his guts that he was swimming toward dog tags.

A lump in his throat, John covered the last dozen of feet sick at heart. Upon reaching the body, he averted his eyes, only to read the horror in Lorne's glance.

The young marines had been half-beheaded by a piece of shrapnel; his face was severely burnt.

Jaws clenched, the two senior officers silently dragged the corpse back to the shore, focusing their glance on the beach, and on the screen of smoke that rose into the air above the burning swamp.

John winced when his hands and knees broke through the sand, solidified by the heat of the explosion.

But he tossed aside his own pain, and sat down next to the body to catch his breath, and to ease his ire.

Knowing that the young man was probably dead before being charred brought him little comfort. His fate sucked, period.

Damn it! This expedition had been going down the crapper since the beginning, and now, it was completely out of control.

What the bloody hell was going on on this moon? What were the Ancients doing here that caused the electronic systems to run amok to the point of crashing a Jumper and provoking an engine overload?

It made no sense...

But making sense did not matter right now. They were stranded. Stranded without food, without medical supplies... with soaked weapons...

John cast a look at the others to make sure that they were still all here.

Sitting down on the bridge, the three other members of Lorne's team were staring at the ground, shoulders dropped by the weight of the death of their comrade. Teyla was sitting down not far, circling her legs with her arms to warm herself, staring blankly at the lake. Ronon was wandering around the charred carcass of the jumper, probably searching the ground for anything salvageable, while Rodney was slumped against the now useless DHD, eyes on the ground.

How screwed they were was obvious to anyone.

John closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, remembering some past discussions with Elizabeth when the weight of being thrown to the position of military commander had raised doubts in his mind about his ability to keep them all alive. Doubts that she felt too, waking her up at night, leading her to insomnia, materialized by the deep craters under her eyes, though almost everybody thought that they were due to harassing days of work.

For a moment, John felt her presence near him, and it soothed his mind. He could not let himself yield to doom. Like her, he was the one who could not let the extent of their predicament show on his face. Even - _especially_ - today. He was the one who had to find a way to get them out of here.

Straightening his shoulders, John turned his gaze toward the outpost, and felt his heart skip a beat.

Once breathtaking, the sight of the glass-walled surfaces reverberated the swamp raging coalescence of orange and yellow tones.

Did the gates of Hell look like this?

John shook the creepy feeling away. He had to think. He had to focus. Not to surrender to irrational fears. Rodney would take care of this anyway.

Though tired, John forced his mind to align logic, coherent thoughts.

Why was the Orchard not visible anymore? Things did not magically disappear, especially when the Ancients were involved. Could a cloak of some kind have engaged, hiding the forest from their sight, and causing the Jumper's malfunction in the same breath? Maybe it was just a change in phase? SG1 had already encountered this trick the Ancient used to hide something in plain sight.

It had to be something like that.

John sighed, beginning to feel in control again. The explanation to all this mess probably lay behind the outpost's walls.

Finally, it looked like they had no choice but to explore the one place they did not want to go in at all costs.

Bitter, John took out the Life Sign Detector from his pocket, hoping that it was waterproof.

A bluish flash lit his face, but the screen stayed all white, as if they were in a bath of pure energy.

"It's useless," Rodney exclaimed, sitting down next to him, "It was already like that just before the storm burst five day ago. Look like we're condemned to die here... Soaked like we are, it's only a matter of time before hypothermia kills us all. Though I think I'll die of hypoglycemia first."

John turned his eyes toward his friend.

"We're not dead yet, Rodney. The Daedalus should be here shortly."

"That's dead-man talk and you know it!" Rodney snarled, shaking his head before sighing heavily, "Lorne did not get a lock on us easily and there's a snow-ball's chance in hell that the Daedalus' sensors will be able to pick up our transmitters' signals."

"Stay positive, Rodney. We'll go into the outpost, find out what's keeping us here, as well as a way to communicate with the Deadalus. Then we'll go home. What do you think Lorne? Sound like a plan to you?" John said, standing up with difficulty.

"Sounds good to me, Colonel," his second-in-command said, nodding, and standing up at his turn.

"Not to me!" Rodney snapped, his wide opened eyes shouting clearly that he wanted to go into the Ancient outpost as much as a hiveship. Pointing his finger angrily at the outpost, he added, "If we go in there we will only trigger systems that will start to-"

"We'll die faster," Ronon growled, moving ahead to join Teyla, helping her to her feet.

"Oh! Right... maybe it's not so bad an idea finally..." Rodney muttered, joining the others, "And by the way, staying positive is your job, Sheppard, not mine."

John shook his head but said nothing. He understood only too well Rodney's despair. The man had a visceral need to control everything, and he suspected that it was not death that scared him, but the absence of computer to tell him how and when it will come.

Tense, and silent, the small group walked the short distance toward the outpost. It's sharp towers now stood out against the dark sky, like red-hot daggers.

Mid way, John caught sight of Rodney casting a very anxious glance at the quiet waters.

John narrowed his eyes, searching for thin waves or anything which could have attracted his friend's eyes but saw nothing, and discarded the alarm. Considering that Rodney was afraid of the crystalline waters surrounding Atlantis, the dark lake could only twist his guts.

A few minutes later, John stopped at the ten-yard wide platform at the bottom of the outpost's front entrance, and stared at the smooth wall in front of him, troubled not to notice any door.

How people walked into? There must be a way.

Intrigued, John cast a look all around, but saw nothing. If there was a door, it was very well concealed.

Maybe it was due to the fact that the original scientific outpost had been upgraded to a military one at the beginning of the war against the wraiths?

"How do we get in there, Rodney?"

"Dunno, maybe you just have to speak '_friend'_like to access the mines of Moria? Just do it in Ancient. What the hell do I know, I don't have the means to analyze this," Rodney replied, shrugging his shoulders.

A moving glint on the smooth surface in front of him made John frown. Acting on a hunch, he glanced at the ground for anything he could throw. He had the feeling that the wall did not seem as solid as it had at first sight, though knew better than to check with his hand.

When he found nothing, he took his Swiss Army knife out of his tac-vest with a bit of regret. Telling himself that at worst, it would bounce back on his feet, and would be in for one of Rodney's vitriolic shots, he threw it as one would throw a ball to a small kid.

The impact created a wave that suddenly caused the wall to move like real, dancing flames, into which the knife disappeared.

John bit his lips, annoyed.

Damn. A cloak. Here he was again. And, different from the last time, was the fact they had no 'MALP on a stick' to check out what it looked like on the other side like they had on the planet where the Ancients had hidden the sanctuary in a time dilation field.

"There's no writing on the wall," Teyla said, stopping at his side.

"Maybe because there's no need to give a warning," John replied, stepping further.

Rodney's hand stopped him, grabbing his arm.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing again? This cloak could be a defense mechanism for all we know."

John sighed. As annoying Rodney was, he could be right. The cloak could be a way to restrict access to Ancients only. Would his powerful _ATA_ gene be enough to grant free passage? Was he going to loose six months of his life again?

The questions flew through John's mind, one after the other. But to each of them, the answer was the same: _what do I know?_

There was only one way to find this answer.

"John..." Teyla said, anxiety filtering through her voice as he extended a hesitant hand to brush the _flame-like_ surface, as much afraid to burn himself as he was to find himself suddenly sucked up through it.

He looked back at her and winced.

"It's not like we've got much of a choice," he said, half-wincing half-smiling in a faint attempt to reassure her, "And we have a saying on Earth for this kind of things. Lightning never strikes twice at the same place."

"Forests don't disappear on Earth either..." Rodney muttered, eyes wide with a genuine worry that touched him.

John winced and nodded, his head slightly tilted to the side, before turning his gaze back toward the cloaked entrance. Every fiber of his body was screaming like hell that he should not go forward under any circumstances, and his feet suddenly felt as if blocks of concrete encased them.

John swallowed a lump with difficulty, and took a deep breath to control his racing heart.

Last time, going through slowly had been painful.

Eyes screwed shut, he voluntarily stepped through the cloak.


	8. Chapter 7

An intensely unpleasant coldness seized John's whole body as he stepped through the barrier, colder than the one he felt each time he stepped through a gate. It was accompanied by a disturbing feeling, elusive yet present. A kind of resistance.

John gave a mental push and suddenly he found himself in a blindingly? bright environment. So bright that he had to squint and raise a protective hand over his eyes. It was by this reflex movement that he realized that he had rematerialized. Though where he could not yet tell.

Tense, John waited a few long seconds for his pupils to adapt to the sudden change of luminosity. His heart was racing, but at least he was feeling no pain. In fact, he was feeling fine now, even better than he was on the bridge, as he noticed that all his shivering had vanished. He wasn't cold anymore.

_So far so good_, he told himself, glancing all around him.

He was in a small, half-circular hallway with smooth white walls. Walls that somehow reminded him of the virtual reconstitution of the Ancient vessel Aurora.

John suddenly tensed up, and held his breath. Wait a sec...Why was he warm?

Although the feeling was pleasant and more than welcomed, the fact that the empty hall was well-lit and warm was leading him to a conclusion that made him uneasy.

Was the place still inhabited?

All his muscles clenched and John looked around him once again with suspicion in his hazel eyes.

"Hello?" he called, carefully stepping forward, glancing overhead.

Though almost as high as in Atlantis' gateroom, the dark ceiling above him caused a twinge of claustrophobia. It looked like a heavy mass, ready to descend and crush him like a press.

Damn... he should not have watched TV so much when he was a kid. Though he could not have guessed then that one day he would be living in a galaxy where his worst nightmares somehow materialized.

_Save for clowns... well, until now..._

"C'mon, John, get a grip on yourself!" he muttered, feeling a bit sheepish.

"Hello?" he repeated, a bit louder, "We're peaceful explorers, we mean no harm," he added, cautiously raising his hands in a peaceful gesture. "Sorry to drop by without notice..."

He waited a few seconds, lending an attentive ear. But the silence did not even return the echo of his voice.

John sighed and shook his head, feeling ridiculous about talking out loud, and even more so about what he was going to do next.

_Deactivate_, he thought, shutting his eyes and focusing hard on the word.

But when he opened a cautious eye a few second later, he was still in the hall. Not in a pod, nor back on the bridge with his teammates.

"No virtual environment then," he whispered to himself, casting a look over his shoulder.

The portal, barrier, shield – he was not exactly sure what to call it – was more visible now under the bright lighting. The black, mirror-like surface definitely looked like the one that had lead him to the sanctuary and made him to age six months in half a day.

The thought made his heart race again, and John took a deep breath to force his nerves to calm down. He had to do some quick recon before going back through and tell the others it was safe.

Damn... he should have ordered them not to go through without his say-so, to wait for his return.

Annoyed, John walked toward the wide stairs in front of him that lead to the only other obvious exit. In all probability, he was in a kind of airlock, and the large double door at the top of the stairs gave access to the rest of the outpost.

He was a step away from his destination when McKay's panicked voice pierced the air.

"What the hell have you done, Sheppard?"

"Dammit, Rodney!" John yelled, pivoting as a sudden discharge of adrenaline electrified his body, clenching all his muscles at once.

"_Why _did you switch the lights on?" Rodney barked, "I told you not to trigger anything that could consume energy, for God's sake!"

John took a deep breath to control his temper?. "I did not switch anything _on_, Rodney. Either the Ancients left them on before leaving or we're not alone."

He doubted the last possibility now, though. Sure, the Ancients were known not to interfere in the lower, material plan of existence of the poor humans they were, but if there were still a bunch of non-ascended beings living there, he trusted that they would have nonetheless have come to their help after the crash.

"What? For ten thousand years? That's impossible, I mean, how many ZPMs are powering this base – er... wait a minute did you just say 'not alone'?" Rodney paused, his facial expression changing quickly from anger to fear. Then against all odds, it changed to thrill as he added, "Do you think they'll share a meal with us? I'm starving. I need to eat or I'll die soon."

John's stomach gurgled and he heaved a sigh. He too was hungry for quite some time now, but he had managed to avoid thinking about it until now.

"Rodney, go back through the portal to warn the others it's safe to come in," John replied, just as another voice sounded.

"Colonel? We have a problem, sir," Lorne said, tensing up.

John paused at the grave look on his second-in-command's face and nodded imperceptibly to order him to report.

"Ronon tried to catch Doctor McKay, but he couldn't get through. The wall solidified in front of him."

"What are you doing here then?" Rodney asked, frowning.

"I was merely testing a theory, Dr. McKay."

Rodney's eyes widened. "You what? Did you just say you volunteered to be a guinea pig? For what experi-"

"Crap... it's gene-activated," John sighed, silencing Rodney, whose mind was obviously impaired by the lack of sugar; he didn't see the common point between the three men who had succeeded in going through the portal. Like him, Lorne had the natural Ancient gene, while Rodney had Carson's version. "You two stay here, hear me?" John said before walking back to the portal, irritated. If he was right, they were going to be forced to split their forces, something he did not like at all.

"Yes, sir."

John briefly stopped in front of the large, black, mirror-like surface of the portal, and stepped back through it.

The same unpleasant cold shudder immediately seized him.

As expected, he saw nothing but darkness when he reached the other side. A darkness in which a red spot was glowing just in front of his eyes, accompanied by a very familiar humming -.

Ronon's weapon!

Startled, John almost fell back through the portal.

"Whoa! Put that thing away before you kill someone, Chewie!" he barked, closing his eyes tight and shaking his head slightly to stop from going cross-eyed.

"The damn thing doesn't want to let me through!"

"With good reason! Maybe it sensed you were going to wreak havoc on the place and decided to keep you at bay," John shot back, wondering why his friend sounded like he had a personal issue with the portal. "There's nothing you can do, Ronon. You need to have the Ancient gene to get through," he added, more calmly.

"Teyla walked through it an instant ago."

John's eyes widened as he sent an alarmed glance toward the portal.

"That's impossible..." he whispered, his trouble changing fast into worry, a worry that changed almost as quickly into fear.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

* * *

Heart pounding in his chest, John quickly joined Lorne and Rodney at the bottom of the stairs. In a few quick words, he told them the latest development.

"Oh that's bad, that's really, really bad!..." Rodney moaned, slowly sitting down with a haunted expression on his face. "The portal must have sensed her wraith DNA. She could have been vaporized into atoms, or sent into space, both of which have the same dreadful result. I need to access to a console, anything. Our only hope is that her pattern is still stored in a buffer somewhere and-"

"Breathe, Rodney," John said, feeling the same anxiety. "She could have been sent to jail as well," he added, holding tight onto this thought. A cell at least they could deactivate.

Rodney glanced up at him dubiously. "Why would the Ancients have bothered to capture a Wraith when they could have killed him easily? I'm sorry, this is all my fault. I wished I had never discovered this moon," he added, propping his elbows on his knees and burying his head in his hands under the heavy weight of guilt. Guilt that John understood all too well.

As John sighed heavily, he caught? Lorne's tense glance. Here again he imagined easily what was going on in his second-in-command's mind.

Their chances of walking away alive from this moon were plummeting, just like the Jumper earlier. They might have survived the crash, but it might not change their fate.

If it had not been for the bright light, John would havesworn that something was lurking in the shadows, weakening them, patiently waiting to take them down one by one. Already they had been forced to split their force.

"C'mon, Rodney. This is no time to yield to pessimism," John said, as much for him as for the two other men, "We'll assume that Teyla is in the outpost somewhere and search for her as well as for a way to get out of here," he added, extending an arm in front of his friend.

Rodney looked up and after a few seconds he grasped John's hand.

The three men silently climbed the stairs, jaws tight with a fear that each of them struggled to control as they approached the door.

The only door.

The only option left.

Unable to convince himself that this was as friendly a place as Atlantis, John felt his heart rate increasing.

Not that the Ancients' city had always fallen into the friendly category anyway. The exploration of its submerged levels the first year after their arrival had held a few unpleasant surprises, and some had even been deadly when the tests subjects of some experiments had run amok in the dark corridors.

No, whatever lay beyond this door was definitely nothing good.

The fact that the Ancients had felt it necessary to drastically upgrade the security of the outpost at the beginning of the war with the Wraith led him to fear that they had played god again, or more probably, Dr. Frankenstein.

Whatever they had invented, it had to be powerful, though not powerful enough to get rid of the life-suckers that plagued the galaxy. If only it had been a weapon to kill the Wraith then maybe this ordeal would have been worth it.

A few steps from the door, John took out his sidearm and aimed it right in front of him. Tense, John swallowed the lump in his throat, took a deep breath, and held it.

The panel slid opened with a smooth sound.

_Here we go..._

A long, empty, corridor with smooth white walls and a low ceiling appeared. About fifty feet away there stood another door that John thought looked like an airlock.

John released a breath of relief and cautiously stepped in, Rodney and Lorne just behind him. An instant later, the door slid shut. John was glancing over his shoulder at the portal? when all lights switched off.

A rush of adrenaline immediately flooded in his veins, and John held his breath again, listening carefully to his surroundings to identify any potential threat. All he could hear was the beating of his own heart, the puffs of his breathing, and the squeaking of Rodney's soles on the polished floor .

"What the hell?" the latter exclaimed.

John raised a fist in the air. "Shh!"

As his pupils dilated, he realized that the darkness that now engulfed the airlock was not complete. A bluish-purple aura glowed around them.

"Close your eyes!" Rodney suddenly exclaimed, adding quickly, "It's UV light. No need to panic, we're just being cleaned!"

Another sigh of relief escaped John's lips as he took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. While Lorne was doing the same, he moved to Rodney who, shoulders hunched up, had his eyes tightly shut.

John shook his head, took out Rodney's sunglasses out of his vest pocket, and put them on his nose.

"Oh! Thanks! After days in a dark environment, I'd forgotten all about those."

"No problem, Rodney," John replied, "Let's move out of here before we get a sunburn. I'm not ready to test if this decontamination program is still operating within safe parameters."

As they reached the other door, however, nothing happened. Rodney sighed, "Oh! Great! We have to wait until the end of the cycle. It will open only when over the program is finished. Do you have some sunblock on you, major?"

"Sorry, Doctor, I left mine in the Jumper."

Five minutes later, the light came back on and the door automatically opened, granting them free passage to the outpost.

Brushing an itchy spot on his cheek, John stepped out, and scanned the vast agora stretching at their feet.

The walls and ground now harbored the green-blue and burgundy familiar tones found in the Ancient cities.

John looked up, appreciating in a glance the height of the cathedral ceiling with the dozens of mezzanine levels that were circling around the agora.

"Why is it all lit up?" Rodney exclaimed, his voice reverberating under the cathedral ceiling. "I mean, how many ZPMs are powering this base that the Ancients did not care about putting some energy saving program in place?"

John shrugged his shoulders. "Dunno, maybe we're on a volcano..." he replied, nodding to Lorne to deploy on their right while he positioned himself diagonally and to the left to have a better view of the upper levels on his right, covering Lorne, who did the same for him.

"Nonono, this was a piece of common rock when the Ancients built the outpost. They terraformed it a bit to sustain some life under the shield, but there is nothing- wow! Wait a sec, I..."

Reacting to Rodney's sudden halt, John narrowed his eyes and scanned the ground to check for moving shadows. Seeing none, he glanced over his shoulder, and winced.

"Are you all right, Rodney?" he inquired, worried by his red face and shocked expression.

"All right? Am I all right?" the latter replied, looking like he was going to burst.

John frowned. "Why don't you sit down for a while, Rodney, and let me and Lorne check the place while you rest," he said, grabbing his friend by the elbow, and slowly helping the shaking man to sit down.

"Nononono, you don't understand!" Rodney suddenly exclaimed, leaping to his feet and grabbing John by his arms. "It has to be, I mean it's the only explanation for this apparently endless source of energy..."

"What do you mean, Rodney?" John asked, perplexed to see a large smile lighting Rodney's face, his eyes wide with- _was that thrill? Could this be a hypoglycemic attack? _Carson had warned him that in mild to severe cases, Rodney could suffer brutal mood swings. Now definitively worried, John forced his friend to sit down again. He had to calm him.

But Rodney struggled and freed himself. "Let go of me, Sheppard! I'm fine! I've never been feeling better in fact!"

_Crap... _this was not the time, John shuddered.

"No, you're not feeling good, Rodney, you're having a hypoglycemic attack," he said, sending an urgent glance to Lorne to tell him to come back ASAP. Carson had also warned him that if such a case occurred during a mission, two people could be necessary to control Rodney. Unaware of his moves anymore, he could become a _wee_ bit violent.

"Do as the Colonel says, Doctor McKay, and sit down, please," Lorne said, putting one hand on the scientist's shoulder.

Startled, Rodney pivoted on his heels, and pointed an aggressive finger at the major, then at John's chest.

"Will you both of you brainless militaries let go of me! I repeat, I am fine and you are just ruining my moment of glory!" he exclaimed, shoulders straight, offended.

John sighed, "What are you talking about, Rodney?"

"The Holy Grail!" Rodney suddenly shouted, raising victorious fists in the air with an expression of pure joy again on his face, "I just found the Holy Grail! Zelenka will turn green with envy when finds out I discovered the place!"

John bit his lip and shook his head as he met Lorne's stunned gaze. If their situation had not been so serious, it would have been laughable. "Okey-dokey," he said, gently seizing Rodney by the shoulders, "Just sit down and then you'll tell us more about this _victory _or whatever your brain is imagining, is that a deal?"

Rodney chuckled, and sat down. "You still don't understand, do you?"

"I'm sure I will when you explain it to me," John replied, sitting down next to his calmed friend with relief.

Rodney turned his eyes toward him and nodded. "Listen. There is only _one_ logical explanation as to why the life sign detectors and energy readings are all fuzzy on this moon, as if we were in the middle a bath of fluctuating energy. It's because indeed we are."

John raised a perplexed eyebrow. In front of him, Lorne shook his head, obviously not understanding the explanation any better than him.

Rodney sighed in despair and added, "In simple language for dummies, this is _the place_ where the Ancients created and built ZPMs."

John's eyes widened. "A ZPM factory?"

"Thank you for that brilliant summary," Rodney said, clapping his hands with sarcasm.

John blew out a long sigh and stood up to pace around in order to control the complex wave of emotions that swamped him. No wonder the Ancients had converted the scientific outpost into a military one. They had not wanted the Wraith to put their bony hands on such a strategic place. And if it had not been for Teyla's disappearance and the dead Marines, he would certainly share Rodney's thrill.

"Let's go," Rodney said, "I'd rather find the main control room before the lack of sugar kills too many of my precious neurons."

John nodded, and with Lorne helped Rodney up.

The three men silently walked across the agora toward a set of stairs in front of them that gave access to the upper floors.

John knew that there should be transporters somewhere, but he did not really feel like using them right now, not until they had an idea of the outpost's layout. Even if from the outside it looked as though the whole building could fit into one of Atlantis' piers, who knew its real size? Anyway, he would at least check the first level on foot before using a transporter.

John was climbing the first steps when Rodney's hand suddenly grabbed his arm.

"Sheppard?"

As he turned his head, he saw Rodney's out-stretched arm, and glanced in the pointed direction. John frowned at the sight of a large opening a few feet on their right. An opening that he could swear was not there a moment ago.

To add to his trouble, in the middle of the frame there was a cat sitting straight, staring intensely at them.

A mewing echoed in the empty room.


	10. Chapter 9

_AN: I wish to thank you all for your reviews :-) I greatly appreciate them!  
_

* * *

_Chapter 9_

"Hey! Kitty... c'mere, little furball," Rodney said, hand stretched in front of him as he slowly approached, half crouched, toward the cat.

"Doctor McKay," Lorne said, "Don't go any closer."

"What are you afraid of, Major? Wraith-cat?" Rodney replied, shaking his head and rolling his eyes as he continued to inch closer, "Don't worry. It's the one I tamed anyway. I recognize the white spot above his nose."

Rapid footsteps echoed behind him.

"Shh! You're gonna scare it!" Rodney whispered, annoyed at the lack of discretion of the two militaries descending the stair to join him.

"How the hell did that beast get here, McKay?" John asked, his irritation plain, "And I am not asking this because one has to have the Ancient gene to get in."

"Well, maybe the Ancients built a cat-flap in the outpost's walls or this cat is _the_ ancestor of all genetically modified organisms, do you think I know?" Rodney replied, eluding the question.

"Rodney..."

"A mutant cat?" Lorne asked, perplexed.

As the little beast licked his fingers, Rodney heard John saying, "Yeah, one with genetically enhanced teeth and claws."

"Watching too much TV will fry your brain one day, Sheppard! Oh, I forgot, you're military. Don't bother, the damage is already done," Rodney snapped, scooping the cat up in his arms. Purring, the feline immediately brushed its head against his chin, quite to Rodney's pleasure. "I'm happy you made it out alive, little one."

As they explored the very long corridor the cat had just signaled the existence to them, Rodney listened with a distracted ear John describing the first appearance of the cat and the ensuing attack on their camp a few days ago.

"I did not addict the cat to chocolate bars!" he suddenly cried, sending an offended glance at John.

"Then why does it have its nose in your vest pockets?" the latter shot back, a smirk on his face.

"Uh... searching for food is perfectly normal for an animal. It has nothing to do with addiction," he retorted, not ready to admit that he had indeed drugged the cat.

"Next time you try to smuggle a cat back to Atlantis, I'll get you addicted to Ronon's and Teyla's training sessions."

Rodney shrugged, focused his eyes on the end of the corridor, and retorted, "Find another threat, Sheppard. That one has long since lost its power! Come on, let's move, we have to find this plant control room. It has to be some- hey!" Rodney suddenly paused as the cat jumped out of his arms and ran forward. "Where are you going, little furball?"

A dozen feet further, the feline stopped and glanced at them.

"Maybe it knows its way around the outpost?"

"For God's sake, it's only a cat, Sheppard!"

"A freaking-mutant cat," John corrected with a wince.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "We don't know that for certain."

An angry mewing broke into their banter, stopping short what was about to become an argument.

"A freaking mutant-cat," John whispered through clenched teeth, insisting.

"I'd stop calling it that, if I were you," Rodney whispered, exchanging a nervous glance with Lorne. Even he had to admit that there was something downright disturbing about the animal; not only in the way it was staring at them right now, but also in the fact he was sure he had left the bag in the Jumper. The cat could have made it out just before the explosion, but what were the odds that it had survived?

"Sheppard?" Rodney suddenly half-barked, half-whispered at the sight of the Colonel putting his hand on his side weapon.

Startled, John blinked and shook his head as if clearing his mind. "What?"

The cat mewed, and turned away.

Rodney exhaled slowly. "I think it wants us to follow it."

"That is exactly what is getting on my nerves right now," John replied, wincing.

"It's not like we have a lot of options anyway," Rodney sighed.

The three men exchanged a silent, tense glance, after which John nodded. "Okay, but stay alert. According to Ronon and Teyla, these 'nice kitties' can turn pretty wild."

Cautious, they continued making their way down the hall.

Without an opening or even the slightest crack in its smooth walls, the corridor seemed to be a junction tunnel between two points. Rodney hoped that it was a kind of gangway allowing the Ancients to move from the living space of the outpost to the work area. A gangway that could be easily sealed in case of trouble.

Rodney's heart started to pound faster in his chest as his vivid imagination conjured up an image of hundreds of Wraith running down the corridor, finding themselves trapped by an elimination program.

Toxic gas, lethal radiation, asphyxiation, lasers coming out of the ceiling and walls... it was so easy to get killed here...

When they finally walked exited the corridor a few minutes later, Rodney examined his new surroundings with growing relief.

"We must be in one of the towers," he said, staring wide-eyed at the large, circular stairwell, spiraling up and down as far as the eye could see.

"Strange," John said, "It looks as high as the main tower on Atlantis, though from the outside all the towers definitely looked smaller."

"An optical illusion?" Lorne said, moving to the guardrail and glancing over. "The cat is a floor down."

"Or maybe it descends deeper into the ground," Rodney replied, looking for a transporter. "Here," he suddenly exclaimed, catching sight of a discreet door in the wall on his left. Relieved not to have to climb down the stair, he headed toward it.

The door opened smoothly in front of him, and a narrow space appeared with a control panel inset in the wall opposite the door. It lit up and a plan of the outpost appeared.

At the doorframe, Rodney scanned the map and muttered a curse. He had no idea where to touch it.

Sick at heart, he pivoted on his heels and headed back toward the stair where he began his descent. Though the idea of having to climb back up was exhausting him, following the cat was their best option.

Rodney cursed against his bad luck. The most important discovery of his life, something that had kept him awake through so many nights for so many years, his reason to breathe, was going to cost him just that.

"Thank God!" he muttered slightly breathless and lightheaded, twenty-two floors later at the sight of Sheppard's and Lorne's back standing still at a doorframe.

Legs cramping, he joined them, elbowing the major a bit to see where the cat had finally lead them.

Rodney's eyes widened of thrill as he stepped into a vast but narrow control room. Further in front of him, concealed behind ground-to-ceiling bay windows, a dark space was streaked with thousands of arcs of statics.

Rodney moved toward the windows to join the cat, and gasped at the sight of a huge, circular well extending up and down as far as the eye could see

, while on its center, a spherical structure was suspended.

"A power silo... I'm in heaven..." he whispered, shocked.


	11. Chapter 10

_AN: Thank you all for your reviews. Your support means a lot to me. We are now only a few chapters from the end of the story.  
_

* * *

_The Orchard _

_Chapter 10_

* * *

Bright bolts of lightning streaked from the walls toward a central structure, reminding John of the plasma ball that sat upon his dresser's top shelf when he was a child. Only this was much bigger and certainly more dangerous, as might be expected of the most powerful thunder storm ever.

John flattened his hand against the glass panel in front of him and was surprised to feel no vibration. Curious, he knocked against the window, determining its thickness, when a familiar grumble came from behind and made him crane his neck.

"Don't worry, Rodney..." John's voice died as he saw that his friend was not looking at him, but was moving from one control console to another like a bee at a loss where to settle in a field of blossoms.

Another groan escaped his friend's lips as he pivoted and stopped in front of a hexagonal console, brows furrowed in deep concentration.

John shook his head and sighed. If he was not tired and dead worried for Teyla, the sight of Rodney now engaged in a full conversation with himself would have been funny.

Knowing better than to interrupt his friend during such a critical moment of active brainstorming, John glanced around and met Lorne's suspicious gaze.

Even if they were in an Ancient outpost, both soldiers had learned that it was better to be safe than sorry, and preferred to check that the area was clean of unpleasant surprises.

With a sign and a nod, John ordered the major to check the area clockwise, while he pivoted to go in the other direction. The control room circled the well completely at this level, so they would meet on the opposite position from their starting point.

And indeed, a few minutes later, the two militaries met, somehow relieved to have only stumbled upon more enigmatic consoles, smooth walls with built-in panels, and lifeless offices.

"You know, sir, I dunno what's the most creepy: a dark outpost that's been abandoned for ten thousand years with curtains of spider webs, a ten-inch layer of dust on the ground, and an unbreathable atmosphere, or a brightly lit one with a sterile environment worthy of a high-tech surgery room," Lorne said, stopping in front of the bay-windows.

"Yeah... the Ancients were probably dust mites' worst enemies," John replied, trying to see Rodney on the other side. But there were too many streaks in the well to allow a clear view, and that made him grow uneasy. "Let's go back."

Both men nodded to each other, silently agreeing to finish their watch as they had begun it.

John had barely covered a dozen feet when something suddenly brushed against him and slipped between his legs.

"What the hell," he muttered, as he tripped over the cat.

The little beast raised its yellow eyes toward him and mewed.

"Sorry, buddy, but I don't have any chocolate bars," John said, resuming his path.

The feline leaped in front of him with agility, but John moved away, a bit annoyed. A playful feline was the last thing he needed right now. He needed to find the brig, hoping he would find Teyla confined there.

The characteristic smooth hissing of a door sliding open disrupted the silence and John's anxious thoughts.

Perplexed, he stopped, and turned his head to his left.

The cat was sitting straight on his rear, in a door frame.

_Damn, freaking mutant cat... _John mentally cursed, ill at ease with the beast's gleaming, yellow eyes staring at him with such intensity that he wondered how sentient the cat was.

_Gleaming, yellow eyes?_ John paused, a weird thought forming in his mind. _Could a Goa'uld inhabit this animal? _he wondered with a wince of disgust.

But John dismissed the idea quickly. Even if there was indeed more than met the eye with the feline, there was no historic presence of the creepy worms in the Pegasus Galaxy save for Caldwell of course but he couldn't be counted in this case.

The cat mewed and pranced in a tight circle, as if he were getting impatient to wait.

John stepped forward and crouched, extending his hand toward the beast, testing its behavior.

The cat moved toward him a few feet and stopped again to sit as straight as the drawings of cats on Ancient Egyptian papyrus rolls. John frowned. Maybe Rodney was right in thinking that this was a genetically manipulated animal. Maybe the Ancients had altered them, creating not watchdogs but _watchcats_?

John lowered his gaze on the ground and chuckled at the idea. Then he muttered a curse and, reassured that nobody was watching, said, "Hey, buddy, look... er... Would you, by any chance, know where the brig is?

John's eyes went round when the cat mewed, got up, and walked through the doorframe.

"Damn Ancients..." John muttered as he stood up to follow the cat.

As he entered a stairwell identical to the one that had lead them to the control room a little while earlier John raised a hand to his radio.

"Lorne, come in," he said, activating it.

After a few seconds, he repeated his call, and through static, he heard,_"Yes, sir?"_

"I found another stairwell, opposite position. I'm gonna check if I can find the brig at the bottom," he said, relieved that the radio was working.

"I'd better go with you, sir."

"No, Major. You stay with Rodney. I'll check in every ten minutes. Oh, Lorne?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Make sure he doesn't blow up another solar system or I'll court martial you," John added with a smirk in an attempt to defuse a bit of the tension he heard in his second-in-command's voice.

"I'll keep that in mind, sir. Hey, sir?"

"Yep?"

"Find Teyla."

John paused to swallow a lump, and saw that the cat was patiently waiting for him a few steps down. Nodding, he said, "I will. Sheppard out."

"Okay buddy, it's up to you and me now," he said, stepping into the stairwell with the firm determination to search this outpost from the basement to the attic, and pull it down brick by brick if necessary.

All senses on alert, John began to walk down a long, forbidding suite of narrow and blind landings separated by sets of a dozen of steps. Though there was no opening in the smooth, burgundy walls, John counted the number of levels he passed in order to estimate how deep the stairwell was going down.

Progressively, the light decreased in intensity, though John's eyes adapted without him noticing it.

On the other hand, he realized the feline was steadily increasing his speed, and soon, in order to keep it in sight, John was forced to climb down the steps at a quick jog that caused him to lower his eyes to the metallic steps not to stumble.

A loud yowling echoed in the stairwell.

_What the hell had stung the feline?_ John wondered. Had it found something?

John glanced up and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Crap..." he cursed, staring at the granite walls with astonishment.

He looked overhead to try to determine when the material of the staircase had changed, but it was now too dark to see much beyond a floor up or down.

Feeling his heart pounding in his chest and pearls of sweat running down his neck, John raised a hand to his radio, deciding to push his third check point forward of a few minutes.

"Lorne, come in?" he said, berating himself for not paying better attention to his surroundings.

Above the cat's meows, a continuous feed of static answered him.

_Damn... _

He had not gotten this far to stop now, right? He decided to press on, despite the lack of sufficient light to estimate how many levels he still had to climb down. As it was, the bottom might be only two floors away, or the stairs could extend into the depths of the moon. It would look the same either way.

John took a breath. After all, there was no better place to build a brig than at the foundation of a dark and humid dungeon.

Four levels down, John came to a final halt and heaved a great sigh, though not out of relief. He still couldn't see the bottom.

Dark waters kept him from going further, reminding him with dread of the time when he had explored Atlantis' flooded sub-levels.

If the brig was further down, there was nothing he could do.

Feeling the iron grip of sorrow crushing his heart and freezing his blood, John sank on his step, propped one elbow on his knee and rested his forehead in his hand, jaws clenched.

But in the brief moment he took to get all his emotions under control, and to reason himself that Teyla could be elsewhere, he did not see that behind him, the cat was now staring at him with its sharp teeth bared in a ferocious smile.

Suddenly, he felt a heavy weight drop onto his shoulders and the bite of claws and teeth on his neck and face. Surprised by the sudden pain, John sprang to his feet, and tried to get rid of the little critter.

John stumbled and lost his balance.

As he fell in the dark waters, a bright, blinding flash streaked across the staircase like a bolt of lightning.


	12. Chapter 11

_The Orchard_

_Chapter 11_

* * *

Lorne cringed as the number of arks of static inside the well suddenly increased so much that the glass began to vibrate.

"Whoa! McKay? What did you do?" he cried, moving backward toward the console where the scientist had been poking for the last five minutes.

"Why are you accusing me? I did nothing! It looks like a power surge," Rodney shot back, eyes wide with dread as the vibrations became louder and louder, "Oh no... this is bad. Really, really, really bad!" he muttered.

Lorne raised a hand to activate his radio, "Colonel? We have a situation..." he spoke, squinting at the bright light coming from the well.

"A _deadly_ _serious_ situation," Rodney corrected before shouting into his own radio: "Sheppard! A power surge is frying the systems. The shield is failing!"

Static answered both men. Lorne caught sight of McKay sitting down on the ground, staring at the well with a resigned expression on his face.

"Get up, Doctor!" he said.

McKay raised his eyes toward him, and strangely calm, replied, "To go where, Major?"

* * *

_**A few hours later, in Atlantis Gateroom**_.

"Thank you, Chuck, patch him through," Colonel Samantha Carter said to the tech operating the communication systems console.

The strain of the last four days had dug dark circles under the eyes of Atlantis' CO. Lack of sleep, excess of coffee, and a permanent knot twisting her guts were taking their toll. Exhausted and dead worried for Sheppard's and Lorne's teams, she drew up her shoulders and turned toward the wide screen where the Daedalus' commander appeared.

"We're in as low an orbit around the gas giant as our shields allow us to be, Colonel," Caldwell said, "but so far, we haven't seen anything close to a moon. Are you sure you sent us the correct coordinates?"

Sam sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, more to keep her nerves under control than to fight the headache that had been brewing over the past few days. "The coordinates are correct, Colonel. Are you sure your sensors are calibrated correctly? The unusual magnetic field around the gas giant requires-"

"Do you want me to patch you to Hermiod?"

"Yes, please," Sam replied, relieved. The Asgard would bring her more reliable answers.

"Hi, Hermiod. How are things going?" she said to the grey, little alien with dark, almond-shaped eyes.

"Fine, Colonel Carter. I overheard your conversation with Colonel Caldwell and I adjusted our sensors' parameters to compensate as much as possible for the strong interference caused by the gas giant's magnetosphere. I am sorry to announce you that if there was a moon in low orbit, there is no longer."

Sam felt the blood leaving her face and she took a deep breath. "Hermiod? Did you search for..." she paused, briefly averting her eyes to swallow a painful lump in her throat.

"Debris, Colonel Carter?" the Asgard finished for her.

"Yes," she nodded, fighting the stinging in her eyes.

"It is my understanding that the Ancients have built a special shield around their outpost to maintain the moon's stability though its decaying orbit. If the shield has failed or an explosion occurred, the moon would have automatically disintegrated into the Giant's stratosphere."

"I know that, Hermiod, but can you check, please?"

"Colonel Caldwell asked me to do so forty minutes ago. I am sorry, Colonel Carter, but the sensors did not pick up anything."

"Thank you, Hermiod. Can you patch me back to the bridge, please?"

The screen turned black for a micro-second before Steven Caldwell appeared again, talking to a crewmember.

"Steven?" she asked, attracting his attention.

The Daedalus' commander turned his head and approached.

"Yes, Sam?"

"Can you do me a favor?"

"I'll check once more before moving back toward a higher orbit."

"Thank you." The screen went black.

Sam nodded, her jaw tightly clenched, as she felt the Gate room crew's eyes heavy on her back. The thick silence conveyed the pain was shared. Atlantis had suffered a great loss, again.

Aware that it was too late for a city-wide call, Sam headed toward the relative intimacy of her office to pull herself together. It was not easy, as her mind replayed the last few days. What could she have done to avoid this? If only they hadn't experienced a serious Gate malfunction a few hours after having sent Lorne's team to the rescue... if only.

Shaking her head, Sam sat down at her desk, propped her elbows on a pile of files, and buried her head in her hands.

Compared to the missions where Sheppard and his team had broken into a Wraith's hiveship or ended up on a hostile planet and miraculously walked away alive, exploring the Ancient outpost had not seemed that perilous. But the hardened soldier in her voiced that it was often in these simple assignments that one crossed Death's path.

On the gas giant's moon, Sheppard's legendary luck had failed him.

* * *

_AN: Well... I'm aware that if I came across this kind of chapter in a book, I'll jump to the last pages in panic. (Yeah... I can be emotional sometimes...) So, I'll tell you this: Go back to the story's summary. I did not say that it was an AU, and did not feel the need to put a special warning either. ;-)_

_I really really have to thank you all for your reviews :-) It's truly cheering me up each time I check my inbox and see one :-)  
_


	13. Chapter 12

_AN: I am so sorry for such a long time between updates on this story. Just know that I have completed the last chapters and that they are now between my betareader's hands. Merry Christmas to you all :-)  
_

* * *

_The Orchard_

_Chapter 12_

* * *

A soft and pleasant breeze fluttered against John's face, brushing locks of hair.

Appreciating the numb state of being half-asleep half-conscious, he kept his eyes closed and breathed deeply,making the moment linger. There was no blinding light, no piercing buzzing in his ears, no crushing weight on his body, no searing pain... just a warm, peaceful breeze stroking his face.

Feeling truly relaxed, John smiled slightly in his sleep as he recalled those long-past times when he would rest on a beach at the end of a hot summer day, watching the seagulls play in the ocean surf while the sun would slowly set, reddening frayed and scattered clouds. Back and forth, the waves slid on the sand, lulling him back to sleep.

"John?" A sweet, feminine voice whispered in the distance, barely audible.

A tiny bright spot, like a distant lighthouse on a black sea, filtered through his closed eyelids, growing wider and more intense.

With a slight moan, he turned on his side to escape it.

"Wake up, John," the voice insisted.

Worry wrinkled his brows as he felt a sense of urgency in the voice's pleas. What was going on? Why did he have to wake up? He felt more peaceful than he had in years.

As John pondered whether to comply or not, he suddenly felt a warm hand stroking his face. Startled by the contact, his eyelids began to creak open. In a whitish haze, he saw the fuzzy outline of a delicate face come into focus above him.

"I'm glad to see you again, John," the young woman said with a smile, retracting her hand.

Regretting its loss, he stared at her for a long moment, unable to talk. Her long, curly brownhair floating in the breeze was familiar, as were her blue eyes, her voice... her smile... He knew her. But who was she?

"Your disorientation is normal, John. Don't struggle against yourself, all will come back to you soon."

John frowned upon hearing these words. Meant to reassure, they only deepened his anxiety, for he had not voiced any of his mounting concern. How could she know how he felt? Was his face such an open book?

"Who are you?" he asked, pulling the sheets away and slowly sitting up on the edge of the bed.

As his bare feet touched the wooden floor, creaking under his weight, he stared at his beige pants, and his loose, white shirt. Though the fabric was comfortable, it felt... wrong. As wrong as waking up in this small room. The raw, wooden walls and the rustic furniture felt intimate and alien in the same time.

At a loss, John buried his head in his hands, and ran them through his hair as he sighed deeply. Scratching the base of his neck, he slowly stood up and began to pace around nervously. A slight vertigo seized him and he leaned on the small room's single, open window to breathe some fresh air and ease his nerves. But when his gaze fell upon the deserted place and the quiet waters of an oblong pond, he only tensed further.

"Don't struggle, John," the young woman said, her hand sliding along his arm.

Feeling his breath shortening, John closed his eyes, and weakly grasped her fingers.

"The cloister..." he whispered after a moment.

Straightening, he took a deep breath and then turned a desperately toward her.

"What am I doing here, Teer?"

"I knew you were strong, John," she said, smiling. It was a quiet smile that sent a swirling wave of emotions washing over him.

"Look, Teer, not that I'm not happy to see you again, but the last thing I remember I was light years away from here, in my bed on Atlantis. What am I doing here?"

John paused and sighed in frustration. What were the Ancients playing at here? Taking him for a common pawn on a chessboard, a pawn one could move and sacrifice at their convenience. Was it a dream?

"Why don't we go for a walk, John? I sometimes miss the softness of the sun on my face," she said, heading toward the open door.

Jaw clenched, John watched her stepping out of the little house where six months of his life had been swept away like a speck of dust.

_Six months in half a day..._ he recalled, bitter, as he followed her to the sunny outside. Yes. It had to be a dream. A weird one.

He still had some difficulties coming to terms with that experience – especially dealing with the deep feeling of loneliness and abandonment he had endured during that period –despite how serene his time here amongst Teer's people had been.

John quirked a sudden, dubious eyebrow at his own thoughts.

Well... serene it had been, even to the point of profound boredom. Most of the time, at least. However, the lurking presence of the beast, a violent materialization of their fears, had been a constant threat hanging over their heads. Fighting it had not exactly been a peaceful activity. But what was he doing in this nightmare again?

"You are not dreaming, John. Your presence in this place is real."

"What? How is it... possible?" he asked, feeling his heart starting to beat faster in his chest as he stared, anxious, at the little village. Everything felt so out of place...

"I understand your dismay, John. It is only natural."

_Natural?_ he wondered, feeling an all too _natural _ire rising.

But his fit of anger was stopped short upon seeing her sitting down on the edge of the pond, her fingers brushing the shimmering waters. His gaze froze. As his breath shortened and his ears began to buzz, John leaned his back against the roof pillar behind him.

"It's okay John, don't fight, breathe slowly," he barely heard her say as he closed his eyes and winced at the sudden rise of a searing headache.

As numbness pricked at him, John felt her hand on his face, warm. The reassuring contact offered him a solid anchor on reality as the memory of his last days on the moon took him over. After minutes that seemed hours, he finally opened his eyes and turned an angry look toward her.

"Now would be a great time for explanations, Teer."

In front of him, the young ascended woman nodded, and resumed her walk in the village. Reluctant, John followed her, clenching his teeth hard while he waited for her to speak up.

"Tell me, John, did you ever wonder where the Ancients picked up the idea that they could become energy beings?" she asked as they entered the clear underbrush of the little forest surrounding the village.

"I thought it was a matter of evolution," he sighed, not feeling at all in a mood to play riddles.

"Not completely," she replied with a rueful smile, heading on their left toward a small bush with thin purple flowers.

At her approach, a butterfly took off and flew toward her.

"Tell me what comes to mind when you see a butterfly or a bird?" she asked, as the fragile insect landed on her finger.

"Why don't you _tell_ me what's in my head, Teer?" he shot back, feeling his patience running low and a creeping, bad feeling that, all in all, he would not like her explanation about his presence here in the sanctuary.

"I'm sorry, John, I do not wish to offend you."

At her pained tone, John closed his eyes and clenched his hands into fists. He took a deep breath to control on his nerves.

"I think that I should never have left my chopper in the first place."

His bitter answer caused a sad smile to appear on Teer's face.

"Your people are very alike the Ancestors in many ways, John. Observing a flying insect inspires you to create a machine that would allow you to fly like it, while I only see grace and delicacy."

"So, what? The Ancients stumbled upon an ascended butterfly, and dissected it to know how it could become an energy being? I'm happy for them. But how does this explain what I'm fu- doing here?" he barked, feeling at the end of his rope.

"Not a butterfly, John."

"What not a butter-" John's brow darkened suddenly.

"Crap..." he muttered, a cold shudder running down his spine. "A cat."

Teer nodded.

"Yes, John. A cat. Though at first, it was merely the collateral of another discovery. But in time it certainly lead them on the path to ascension."

John closed his eyes, and scratching his neck, he paced around like a lion in a cage while his brain fully grasped this bit of information.

"I knew there was something weird about that critter..." he said as he stopped moving and faced her, "Now, you said too much or not enough."

Teer nodded, and resumed her path toward the nearby fields of crops.

"A long time ago, an Ancestor's exploration team discovered the moon where youyou're your team ventured. But after communicating their discovery, they disappeared without leaving a trace. The Ancestors sent rescue and found an empty vessel in orbit around a small moon, but at the opposite coordinates from the gas giant. Not understanding the disappearance of the crew members, they declared the zone off limits. About two hundred years passed and they had all but forgotten about the tragic incident when one of their cruisers was damaged and exited out of hyperspace in this same system. The Ancestors sent a rescue vessel again, but like the previous time-"

"They found a ghost vessel," John finished, intrigued. So, the gas giant was some kind of huge transporter.

John frowned, perplexed by where his thoughts were heading.

Atlantis was full of transporters. People dematerialized in one, and rematerialized a nanosecond later in another one in another part of the huge city. It did not mean that they ascended and _de-ascended_ each time they walked in one, did it? Though why would the Ancients never rematerialize?

"After years of research," Teer continued, "they finally managed to create a protective shield, and established a permanent outpost on the moon to study the phenomenon."

"A research center about ascension..." John whispered, eyes widening of stupefaction, "The first Ancients ascended by accident."

"However, at first, it was a power research facility. The Ancestors wanted to control the energy created during the dematerialization of the moon. They began their experiments by trying to capture the energy coming from inert matter, before moving to small animals, and slowly, they increased their size until their containment fields reached their limits."

"Don't tell me. They finally settled for cats."

As Teer nodded, John felt a shudder running down his spine.

"I understand your distaste. I share it too, as did some of the scientists who changed the direction of their research and instead preferred to use the cats to find a way to safely re-materialize their missing people."

"From cat-batteries to cat-guinea-pigs... No wonder they had some hard feelings toward us," John sighed, feeling a strange mix of awe and disgust. Well, maybe he was too blasé about the Ancients' taste for controversial experiments to actually feel anything but weariness. Somehow, the outpost was a strange entanglement of the Matrix and Dr. Frankenstein's manor.

_That's the Ancients for you..._ John thought, bitter.

"That still doesn't tell me what I am doing here, Teer," he asked, zeroing in on his personal predicament.

"It does, John. Remember the cat that lead you into the outpost?"

Swallowing with difficulty, John rubbed the base of his neck where the feline's claws had pierced his skin.

"That critter sent me staggering through some kind of cloak."

"A cloak that is connected to the Orchard, outside of the shielded part of the moon. And it pushed you through just in time for the dematerialization of the moon."

John closed his eyes as Teer's words caused a dreadful realization. So the cat was responsible, one way or another, of all the troubles they had stumbled upon since their arrival, just so it could lead them – _him –_ to this precise spot, at a precise second? Dammit. From the life sign detector showing incoherent signals, to the jumper's malfunction... Crap. Maybe even for the electro-magnetic storm that had cut them from the Gate at their arrival.

"I knew that cat would bring us only hassle..." John muttered before adding, "So what? I ascended? As much as I find the experience _interesting_, and this chat highly enlightening, can you now bring me back to the moon next to my team-mates? Some of us still have work to do."

But instead of nodding, Teer turned pale, and briefly averted her eyes.

"What?" he asked, frowning with worry.

"You have to understand, John, the Ancestors' containment fields were designed to handle the energy coming from small living beings. Yours was well beyond their limits..."

Upon seeing the distress on her face, John felt his heart clenching.

"You mean I caused... what? A surge?"

Teer nodded sadly.

"The cat used you to free the energy of his trapped companions."

"But the outpost just dematerialized then," he whispered, feeling a tightness in his chest, "and everybody on the moon instantly ascended," he added trying to find a reassuring outcome. Though somehow, he knew it was not the case. Why would he be the only one here then?

Were they all dead?

Though he had not vocalized this last, horrible thought, Teer nodded again.

"I'm sorry, John. But when you said it was a matter of evolution, you were right too. If you don't have a certain genetic pattern, your energy loses cohesion and scatters. All the trapped cats disappeared too. The one you encountered was one of his kind. He only had the right genetic make-up to ascend. In the end, he did all this for..."

Teer's words died in her throat.

_For nothing..._ John finished for her. His friends had died for nothing.

Jaw tightely clenched, John closed his eyes tight to keep his emotions under control. As he felt it would not be possible, he pivoted and walked away for privacy. Hands turned into fists in his pockets. Lowering his gaze on the grass at his feet, he tried as hard as he could to contain the tears that burnt his eyes from flooding out.

"Why am I here?" he asked, his voice shaking from pain and ire.

"You bear the Ancestors' genetic heritage in your blood, John. Though you were unprepared for such an adventure, it made you stronger during the ascension. But your mind was fighting to regain his proper form. You then brought yourself here."

John's eyes widened and he gasped at the revelation.

"The potential to ascend is in you, John, and you know it. And you knew that the cloister was the best place for achieving this goal."

"Dammit! I don't want to ascend, Teer!"

"I must go now, John," Teer said as a bright light began to swallow her, "Remember, you shared our last moments of human life. The path to ascension is one of peace of mind, and once achieved, the rules about non-interference are strict."

"Peace of mind!? Are you kidding me? Teer!" he cried, feeling on the edge of panic as he found himself stranded, alone.

She was gone.

His shoulder and back aching under his tension, John stared at the void where the young woman had stood a second before, not believing how could this happen. How could his friends be dead and he alive? How could have he condemned himself to this place?

Devastated, John slowly sat down on the ground and buried his head in his arms, certain that the Sanctuary would be his grave.


	14. Chapter 13

_AN: Though a bit late, I wish you a happy new year to you all :-)  
_

* * *

_The Orchard_

_Chapter 13_

* * *

"_We should tell him, Teer! Next time, he will get killed before I can intervene!"_

"_Hedda, it is his path, we cannot intervene..."_

John's jaw clenched as he heard Teer's words. He couldn't believe it! Can't intervene, huh? It was easy for them. They just had to sit down and watch the biggest reality show ever created. Who will be eliminated this week? Which people? Which planet? Who will be Pegasus galaxy's _lucky_ survivor? Dammit!

"_He's awake."_

As the voices suddenly stopped, John let out a long sigh, and opened his eyes. He was numb, as always. And as always, barely had he thought about his state when Hedda's hand moved toward him. Irritated, he jerked away from her hand, and stood up despite his tiredness.

"How do you feel, John?" Teer asked with concern.

John clenched his teeth as he processed her question. Why did she still feel compelled to ask? She knew how he was feeling.

"I told you to leave me alone last time," he growled, picking up the long, and sharp makeshift knife on his night table before storming out of the house without a glance at the two ascended beings.

In fit of a dark ire, he strode across the street toward the forest.

"John, don't be angered, please. I only want to help you," Hedda said, coming to his side.

That made him stop dead in his tracks.

"Fine. Transport me back to Atlantis."

The young girl stared at him, mouth slack and eyes open wide in distress.

"Don't say you wanna help, then," he replied, resuming his path.

"You know we can't, John..."

"You can leave."

Teer interjected. "John, you can't fight it again! Next time it will kill you before-"

"So what?"

John sighed, and threw his arm in front of him in a giving-up gesture. It was worse than being caught in a parody of Groundhog Day_._

Now, he regretted the times when all he feared were clowns. Maybe then his personal beast would have tried to kill him with a pathetic joke or caper. It would have certainly been less painful. But more probably, it would have put on the red hair and white face of Stephen King's devilish clown. Maybe "It_"_ was a Wraith after all. They certainly shared the sharp, tartar-lacquered, bad teeth.

John felt a shudder running down his spine. Did he really have to think of "It"right now?

"Where are you going, John?" Teer asked, jerking him out of his gloomy thoughts.

"Hunting," he growled as he strode across the forest with the firm intention to get to his beast first.

"You're going to provoke it!" Hedda cried.

"The hell I am!" he shot back before pointing a finger to the ascended girl and adding, "Don't heal me this time!"

This was even worse than the use of intensive medication.

He had been stranded in the Sanctuary for less than a month, though for the outside world, a mere hour had passed by. The Ancient temporal distortion field made time flow at a much faster pace for the cloister's inhabitants than for the rest of the galaxy, thereby speeding up the process of evolution that would lead them toward ascension.

But Teer's people had lived here for centuries before showing the first signs of evolution. This journey did not seem to be one of finished in the span of one lifetime. No matter how long he stayed here, he would not ascend. He did not want to become like them anyway, no more than he wanted to live peacefully in the Sanctuary and die of old age while the rest of the universe was at war.

Utterly disgusted, he strode across the last thin curtain of trees and stepped into the field. The high grass bent under the wind, but a wind he could not feel on his face. John stopped and stared all around him. She was here, he was certain. His heart started to pond faster in his chest as his fingers clenched his knife.

It had taken decades before the fears of Teer's people materialized under the shadow of the beast; his own demon had appeared barely a few minutes after his arrival.

A distinct stream of air in the leaves scattered on the ground, raising dust while a distant whistling began. As he reached the cloister, he saw a turbulence blurring the sky over the agora. The kind of turbulence that a cloaked jumper would cause, but the sound was one of a dart. And as soon as night had swallowed the village, his personal demon had burst through the door of his small room and swooped down on him to suck the life from his body.

The first time, Hedda and Teer had intervened to save him from the ghoulish-bride looking like the Wraith queen they had stumbled upon on their first week in the Pegasus galaxy. The guardian queen, with long, red hair and white dress. The one that had killed Sumner. The one he'd already killed. The one he would kill again.

"Come here! I am waiting for you!" he shouted, ordering his nightmare to appear at once. "Come try to get me, you bitch!"

His heart knocking wildly in his chest, John narrowed his eyes and scanned the area in search of the queen.

"I'm gonna kill you again!"

"Try..." she blew in his ear, exhaling her fool breath on his neck.

Tense, John pivoted quickly to slice at her throat with his weapon, but her hand caught him first. For the hundred time, liquid fire burnt through his veins and scorched his eyes.

* * *

John was lying on his bed, staring at the wooden ceiling above him.

Now that he had been gazing at the notches and cracks in the old planks for a while, he thought he recognized in their tangle the Milky Way's constellations. Sort of like when he had made them appear the first time he sat in the Ancient chair in the Antarctica outpost.

_I said don't touch anything! _General O'Neil had barked.

_Why did I not listen? Why?! _John wondered, berating himself for his stubbornness to ignore orders_. _

In the total silence of his room, he reflected on the day his life had been turned upside down.

But even now, he did not regret for one second sitting in that damned chair.

_Do not struggle, John..._

Teer's words echoed in his mind. Not struggling, yeah. He had tried that too, but where had it led him? _Back to square one._

Last night, he had stood up and faced the queen, unarmed. Palms opened, he had told her that he did not fear her anymore. Was it not that way that Teer's people had finally vanquished their demon and ascended?

The queen had laughed, and sucked him dry of life doing so.

Sumner's quickly aging face appeared from his memories, then Ford's juvenile smile before his body became hooked on the Wraith's enzyme; Elizabeth's quiet glance, heavy with her responsibilities...

John sighed and closed his eyes to keep tears from pearling. The past was history. And he was too.

A diffuse warmth on his face lulled him into sleep.

The room was pleasantly bathed in sun when he woke up some time later. Weary, he pulled the sheets away, and walked out to sit on the wooden front step.

John sat for a long time, staring at the lifeless place. He knew that Teer was still roaming around somewhere, probably waiting for him to say a word before appearing. But he did not acknowledge her presence anymore; he had nothing to say. So he kept silent. Ronon was great at this game. Unlike Rodney, who always needed to vocalize his state of mind when not deeply focused on one of his many Nobel Prize-worthy studies.

A faint smile on the face John stood up, eager to get the blood pumping through his legs. Like he had done years ago, he splashed some water on his bearded face, checked that his knife was strapped to his side, and broke off at a low pace jog.

That day, he did not provoke the Wraith. Nor did he the following day, nor the next one either. A week passed, then a month, without any whistling, no claws digging in his chest.

As the Wraith Queen did not reappear, he also felt Teer's and Hedda's ghostly presence leaving his sides.

John found in a strict, military routine the strength to get through his days of solitude.

As he was taught, he insured his survival by applying rules and strategies to the letter. On a plank, he created for himself a calendar in order not to lose track of the days. He set himself to exploring the whole Sanctuary, delineating zones and mapping them out, indexing the resources each provided. Food, water, wood, rocks... As Teer had told him when he first came here, the Ancients had created a well balanced ecosystem that covered all basic needs. His knowledge and training was enough to exploit everything at hand.

But what was so basic when talking about a human being? What about his need to fly? What about his need to see other people? To talk to someone?

The memory of O'Neill's shocked reaction when he'd told him that he _liked_ it there, being assigned to McMurdo, made a sad smile appear on his face. He was a solitary man, and the silence and loneliness of the rough, white, endless plains had felt so peaceful.

Then why was his seclusion in the Sanctuary weighing on his shoulders so heavily? Why could he not stand living in the cloister?

_Antarctica was not meant to be inhabited..._

He had enjoyed the silence back there, while here, it was a torture.

As the months passed by, he had to admit that Atlantis had changed him. Before setting foot in the Ancient city, he didn't mind being isolated.

Unable to bear living in a replica of a western movie ghost city anymore, John did the only thing he could to alleviate his ordeal. One morning, he left the cloister.

Thus began for him a long voyage across the desert.

* * *

John was standing under a hard rain, kneeling on the muddy ground in front of a small cluster of stones.

He had done it. He had finally found the strength to do it.

After an unusually long life, one might say, his squirrel was dead.

John closed his eyes, and stood up to move away. The rain was hiding the tears that might be rolling down his cheeks, but the burning in his eyes was not mistaking. He was crying.

How can one voluntarily terminate the life of a friend that had shared one's life for almost four decades without being damaged?

Heart sick, John climbed back into his tree to face his loneliness once and for all. He was old now. And unlike Teer's people, he had not developed any special ability during his time here. He guessed ascension was just not for him. He felt that his end was near. Already he had suffered a few of what he suspected were strokes and that had left him somehow impaired_. _His whole right side was stiff since the last, two months ago. Or was it five? He did not remember exactly.

_Doesn't matter._..

As his hand gripped the last rung, a sudden pain seared through his brain. His breath shortened, and as his vision blurred, he felt himself falling into the void. John barely felt the impact on the ground twenty-feet down. Flat on his back, he gasped for air and in a final spurt of effort, tried to fight his dizziness away.

_Do not struggle, John. _A sweet voice said in his mind.

As his sight darkened, a tiny spot of light appeared in the center of his pupils. He tried to say her name but a sob came out instead, and his words got stuck in his throat.

"Shh... concentrate on yourself only," she said, stroking his head.

Her warm palm on his cheek made him open his eyes, and he saw her, so delicate, face above him in a middle of a soft light.

"I... need you... Teer," he finally whispered, finding the strength to press his cheek against her palm, and grab her hand.

"I know. And I'm here."

Numb, John focused on the softness of her caress. He was not alone. Not anymore. Slowly, the warmth spread to his whole face, moved down his neck, invaded his chest. As a bright light swallowed him, he felt the weight of his body vanishing completely.


	15. Epilogue

_AN: The epilogue has __not__ been beta-readed either. But I prefer to give it to you, you have waited enough to know the end of the story that I can't postponed it any longer._

* * *

_The Orchard_

_Epilogue_

* * *

A knock on his door yanked John back to consciousness.

Irritated to be awaken, he burrowed under the blanket and put his pillow over his head. He was too exhausted to get up, and the sheets felt like a leaden cloak on his numb body. But slowly, a part of his mind started to fight the warmness. It had to be important. Nobody would be mean enough to wake him up otherwise.

_Are we under attack? _he wondered just as a voice sounded in his ear.

"Hey! Sheppard!"

Startled, John automatically reached for his gun on his side table.

"Whoa! Calm down!" said a high-pitched panicked voice.

Recognizing the dark silhouette standing on his right, John gasped and put his weapon back down.

"McKay? What the hell are you doing here?" he barked, stretching his arm to turn on the lights.

But by the time his room lighted, Rodney was nowhere to be seen. Incredulous, John blinked and looked around. He had so expected to find himself face to face with his friend's nose that he felt confused. Could have he dreamt the scene? In his tired state, he wouldn't even be surprised. Hallucinations were common when one was lacking sleep. And Pegazus' galaxy had ensured that his nightmares would be vivid enough to feel real and send his heart ponding a mile a minute.

With a sigh, he lay back down on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

"Come on!" his friend's voice suddenly rang out from the hall.

Startled, Sheppard jerked his head to the left and frowned. The door was open. Muttering a curse, he buried his head in his hands, and rubbed his sleepy eyes.

_No hallucination then._.. he sighed as Rodney's face suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"What are you waiting for?" his friend asked, impatience making his voice vibrate.

His teeth tightly clenched, John pulled his sheets away, and forced his sore body to sit up on the edge of his bed.

Five minutes later, John wearily walked out of his room into the dimly lit corridor. Without casting a glance at Rodney, who was fidgeting on the spot like popcorn in a microwave, he turned to his left and headed toward the closest transporter.

"Three hours ago, I found a file about a moon in low orbit above a gas giant forty times bigger than Jupiter in the database," Rodney exclaimed, immediately falling in alongside him, "The Ancients built a scientific outpost on it but at the beginning of the war against the Wraith, they converted it into a military base-"

"Although more weapons would be fine, I still don't understand what is so urgent. Obviously, we're not under any immediate threat. Right?" Sheppard sighed, looking at Rodney as they walked.

"Do I look as if a Hiveship had just popped up on our sensors? Stop interrupting just for the sake of stating the obvious and you'll know why it can't wait," his friend said just as the transporter's doors opened in front of them.

As John stepped in, the control screen lightened and displayed an overall map of the city. Eager to silence Rodney at least for a micro-second, John stretched a hand toward its center when the lights suddenly flickered, and shut down.

"What the hell?" Rodney cried, using his laptop's screen to lit the small cabin.

Irritated, John pivoted on his heels and touched the door. To his dismay, it refused to open.

"Crap..." he sighed, activating his ear piece, "Sheppard to Control room."

_What the hell is going on?_

Getting no answer, John took a deep breath, and pinched the bridge of his nose. That was the last straw. Being stuck in an off-line transporter...

"Sam? This is Rodney. Can you run a diagnostic on the transporters' network? Sam? Sam?"

_With Rodney_.

John shook his head, all to aware that his friend claustrophobia would cause an endless flow of words out of his mouth. As if his headache was not strong enough.

"What the hell is going on again?" his friend muttered, already sounding on the edge of panicking.

"Breath, Rodney. There was no explosions, so it's probably just an electrical shutdown," John said, expecting for the safety circuit to switch on. But when nothing happened, he turned to his friend and added, "Can you unlock the door?"

His question was rewarded by a sarcastic smile.

"Access panel on the other side."

John sighed. "You must be kidding me."

"Oh yeah, of course I'm kidding. I'm having so much fun being trapped while one of the most important discoveries of the century is waiting for us."

John sighed again, preferring to ignore this answer when static sounded in his ear.

"_John, Rodney?"_

Both men replied "yes" in the same time upon hearing Sam's voice.

"_We have a situation here in the Gateroom. Some kind of strange surge overloaded our systems in the middle of a dialing sequence. The safeguards kept it from blasting the control room but it fried most of our systems. Where are you?"_

"Can you get the transporters back on line?" Rodney replied, "We're stuck in the one in quarters area three level ten."

"I'll try to send you help. Sam out."

John muttered a curse and slid against the internal panel of the transporter.

"Hey! Sheppard! What are you doing?"

"What do you want me to do? Restore the power by my thoughts?"

"Oh! Funny, very funny. And very egoistic too. You could at least... Hey! You're not sleeping, aren't you?"

A small nudge in the shoulder accompanied Rodney's words. Too exhausted, John ignored it.

"Uh... He's sleeping. I don't believe it."

It was not long before he dozed off for real.

* * *

The sudden feeling of being hauled up in the air jerked John back to consciousness.

"Whoa! Whoa!" he cried as he saw a blurry ground moving below him. Recognizing immediately the boots below him, he then quickly added, "Put me down, Chewie!"

Thankfully for his nerves, his request was obliged straight away.

"Sorry, Sheppard, but McKay says he needs this transporter," Ronon said, grabbing his elbow to stabilize him.

Disoriented by such an abrupt wake up, John frowned and glanced around him. Why were a pillow and a standard military blanket doing inside the transporter? Had he slept in there?

"What time is it?" he asked, stretching his numb and sore body.

"Eight am," Rodney informed, picking up the pillow and throwing it to him.

Out of reflex, John caught it with a wince of pain as the move made some bone in his back crack.

"What? I slept for six hours in that transporter?" he asked, embarrassed. What was he doing here in the first place? Oh, yes, Rodney wanted to show him something about an Ancient outpost.

Ronon nodded, before adding with a crooked smile, "Plus a full day."

John froze, his eyes widening out of dread.

"Are you kidding me? You left me in there for- ouch," he groaned, wincing of pain again. _Crap..._ no wonder he was so stiff. "It would have been nice to wake me up before my back solidified."

"Jennifer thought that the transporter was a kind of sensory deprivation tank," Rodney said, "and that you would sleep sounder in it than in your quarters. As Sam was thinking to order you to take a week of vacation, both ladies thought it was worth a try. Oh by the way, Jenn told me yesterday evening that she had slipped a bottle of muscles relaxants in your right pocket."

John groaned, not knowing which info was the more edifying. That his CO in agreement with the Chief Medical Officer had left him sleeping on the ground, or that Rodney called Keller by her first name and was meeting her.

"You meet the good doctor by the evening now?" he asked, taking the opportunity to avert the discussion from his person.

Rodney's blushing face snatched him a crooked smile.

"I... I had a persistent headache, so I got down to the infirmary to get something more powerful than extra-strength Tylenol, and Jenn was there-"

"Hey, look who's finally awake," Teyla's voice sounded in front of him, "So who kissed him?"

Eyes widening in panic, John jerked his head straight and saw the last member of his team smiling at him. Feeling a rush of blood in his face, he promptly looked away, scratching the base of his neck as he was not quite sure how to take her words. She could not be serious?

"Ronon woke up Sleeping Handsome," Rodney announced with a satisfied grin.

_Sleeping what? Oh crap! _John shuddered, searching for a mouse hole to slip in.

If it was not already the case, the whole city would joke on his behalf in the next hour.

"Hey! McKay insisted, pretending being too much in a hurry to walk to the other transporter," Ronon said, not even caring about denying.

"Transporter?! Hurry?! Where was my mind?" Rodney suddenly exclaimed.

Stepping back into the cabin, he added, "And I was not pretending! Some of us just can't allow the privilege to lazily spend their time doing nothing while each second that-"

As the doors closed on their friend, thankfully silencing the rest of his sentence, John caught sight of Ronon's amused glance. Sighing heavily, he then pivoted on his heels and moved away toward his quarters.

He feared he would never hear the end of this one.

_The End_

* * *

_AN: I really want to thank you all for your patience and your continuous support while I was writing this story :-) _

_So yes, I never intended to create an AU. The cloister fascinated me and I wanted to give John the opportunity to ascend. What better place than the one were he could be confronted by his own demons? _

_Though once achieved, and knowing his tendency not to follow orders, I found difficult that he would just obliged the Ascended Beings' Chart of Honor. He did lose his friends on the moon, and no matter the consequences for him, he would do all his possible to bring them back as soon as he was given the opportunity. Even if that meant getting kicked out the ascended sphere in the same way. _

_I also felt like the Ancients, when it suits them, don't mind too much about bending their own rules so allowed him somehow this trick, or was protected by some that felt compel to offer him support.  
_

_I hope you had as much joy to read "The Orchard" than me to write it._

_Thank you :-)_


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